Dear Lee,

Storing antiques is a problem for collectors. We suggest a few solutions for small antiques in our story about bookcases and file cabinets on page 88. But what about that other, even more serious, problem-wonderful purchases that just don’t fit in your house. To save you from this kind of mistake, here are a few disasters we faced or watched others face over the years:

1) We bought a unit of shelves from an old grocery store, perfect to use in our “country store” in the basement. It barely fit in our station wagon. Our son and a friend offered to carry the shelves downstairs, but no matter what they did, it was impossible to maneuver the unit down the steps. We kept making suggestions: stand it up, tip it diagonally, take the basement door off the hinges. No luck. The stairs to the basement have a turn and the shelves would not make it around that corner. We solved our problem by taking the shelves to the garage to store flower pots.

2) We watched a pair of flea market customers try to put a just-purchased upholstered chair in the trunk of their car. They even had a bungee cord to hold the lid down. But after tipping, turning, removing the casters, etc., they tried the back seat instead. More tips and turns. They moved the seat up and took the headrests off. No luck. Next the front seat. They slid the seat back, tipped the chair, ripped the upholstery in the car and gave up. Best solution: Discuss transportation of big purchases before you buy. Tell the dealer you will buy it only if you can get it in your car.

3) We gloated over the next one. At an auction, a rather nasty bidder won a desk we wanted. The next day we had a call from the winning bidder. Did we still want the desk? She would sell it to us at her auction price. No, we said. We no longer needed it. Her bids had raised the price, so it was no longer a bargain. Why did she want to sell her desk? It would not fit through any window or door in her house. Always measure before you leave home to buy.

4) A decorator tried to get a dealer to reduce the price on an 18th-century highboy she wanted for a client. She kept asking for months. The dealer was so annoyed, he gave the highboy to a charity auction. The decorator bought it at the auction for a reasonable price. She took it to the client’s home, tried to put it in the newly enclosed porch and discovered the highboy was 8 feet tall-and the ceiling only 7 1/2 feet. She decided to donate the highboy to the next public television auction. Sometimes you can take a finial off the top of a tall piece of furniture or a grandfather clock. But remodeled rooms always present problems.

We will wait for another day to tell horror stories about moving a cash register and a shoeshine stand, the bugs we found in drugstore drawers and the stinky quilts we bought.