Melodie Bryant inherited a portrait of her Uncle Ivins, along with some furniture she dislikes but feels compelled to keep.

By JOYCE WADLER

Melodie Bryant, a New York City composer, never wanted the portrait of her Uncle Ivins.
There were many things she did want when her mother moved from an elegant 230-square-meter apartment in Los Angeles to a smaller place in Manhattan, but plenty of others that she didn’t, though she got them anyway: the mirrored Victorian vanity ; the armchair that was too small to serve as a comfortable reading chair.
Once that was in her apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, “there was no room for a reading chair,” says Ms. Bryant, who is 59. “It’s like a Chinese puzzle in my house - you have to think three steps ahead.”
Then there was Uncle Ivins (who was actually a great-great-great-uncle, Ms. Bryant says). “Nobody else wanted Ivins,” she said. “I didn’t want him either. But I could not let him go to some estate sale. I took him home and I was very, very careful when I placed him in the truck.”
Here is the problem with family furnishings: they are never simply stuff. It is very difficult to get rid of a piece of furniture bequeathed to you by a member of a previous generation, which carries with it not only your memories, but his or hers as well.
Even today, when so many people favor simple, modern decor, turning your back on a grandmother’s tea set or ornate settee can feel like betrayal. Tell your family you’re thinking of getting rid of such a piece and you’re likely to start a family fight. Ambivalence and guilt, it seems, are central elements of furniture inheritance.
For those who are unable to risk family wrath by refusing or selling a piece, there is always a furniture facelift.
Joe Nye, a Los Angeles decorator, owns a family piece that tortures him, “this really kind of hideous Victorian settee.” It belonged to his grandmother and comes from his childhood home, in Kearney, Nebraska. For many years it was covered with pink silk velvet fabric chosen by Mr. Nye, who is now 52, when he was 12 .
Mr. Nye had a painter spray it white and reupholstered it in white and yellow checks . When he changed his decor, he tried for chic by ebonizing it and putting taupe linen fabric on it. “It just looked like an old Victorian settee painted black with linen on it.” It has now been exiled to his office.
“It will never live in my house, Mr. Nye says. “But I can’t get rid of it. I’d be guilt ridden, I’d have to increase my Zoloft.”