We all have a space in our home – a closet, cabinet, drawer, or box – that started out with a clear plan for what would go there, but over time has evolved into a somewhat random catch-all. As such, it’s one of those places that, as we go through our de-cluttering process, we avoid. It’s going to be too messy.

Our buffet is one of those places in our house. Now, to be clear, the buffet itself is fantastic in every way. Michael inherited it from a great-uncle in Los Angeles who had both money and great taste. It’s got a 1930s-1940s post-Art Deco feel, with warm honey-stained wood and funky etched round handles, and it’s solid as a rock. (As the poor guys who moved our stuff from our one-bedroom downtown delivered it, they realized how underpaid they were!) It fits perfectly in our small dining room, yet it holds a surprising amount of stuff. The latter, however, has become as much of a curse as a blessing over the nearly two decades we’ve been here.

It was initially the storage space for our “nice” dishes – a subtle white-grey-beige Villeroy and Boch leaf pattern that we fell in love with at someone’s dinner party – and our tablecloths and napkins. It made sense, then, that when my sister gave us a raclette grill for our wedding, the accessories would go in there, too. And once the kiddush cups and candlesticks and the lovely glass seder plate were stashed in the bottom drawer, it became a repository for any and all other things Jewish-holiday themed: the cute havdallah set and several candles, small silver tschotchkes that Michael’s great-aunt in Geneva sent home with him from winter visits there, and of course the requisite, and always-growing, pile of kippot (which really got out of hand when our daughters’ friends started to become bar and bat mitzvahs).

You probably recognize this pattern and are wincing a bit thinking of your own “buffet.” But I’m writing to tell you not to. Over the past two days, once I got past the reluctance to tackle this cluttered monster, I’ve experienced multiple pleasures.

First, of course, now that I’m becoming a pro at knowing what I will use and want to keep and what I won’t, I enjoy the feeling of sorting the plate, placemat, bowl, and cup “nos” into neat piles and then into a big box, where they can support families who are moving into their own homes for the first time. This also means that there’s now proper, non-cluttered space for the keepers. Second, and much more joyous, many of these items – both keepers and non-keepers – brought back wonderful memories.

One of the now five tablecloths was a wedding gift from my parents’ close friends, and we still comment every time we sit down to eat about the lovely, colorful Hungarian embroidery. It recently has company from a second hand-embroidered tablecloth that my mother-in-law and I discovered while cleaning out her linen closet, and that brings its own story to the buffet. The apron that Michael’s grandmother embroidered for him with all our names – including both dogs – needs Atticus’ name added to it, which I can do. The way-too-ornate-for-my-taste tea set that I inherited from my maternal grandmother – the ultimate “if it’s got gold on it I love it” grandma – has evolved into our Mothers’ Day tradition of serving fancy tea after a brunch of tea sandwiches, scones, and cookies. Without the set, I suspect the tradition, which has become a huge favorite, including among the dads, would not have happened. And as Michael and I sort through the various tschochkes we have accrued, we can consider which few of them we really love and want to hold on to, and find a place for them that isn’t the bottom drawer of the buffet, but a lovely spot where we can display and enjoy them every day.