My parents just moved from a single-family home to a smaller house in a senior-living community.
Making the adjustment from 45+ years of 4-bedroom, 3+ bathroom, garage, multi-floor lifestyle to a 5-room one-level smaller house is a process.
My mom spent the better part of six months planning, deciding, packing, donating, discarding the stuff that made up her home for most of her life. For my small part, I’ve looked through many boxes. I’ve boxed up many items for donations. I’ve inherited family heirlooms–furniture and antiques–before we were quite ready. But we’ve made it work.
And I’ve learned a few things along the way.
Downsizing can be an emotional and stressful process, especially if you have lived in a home for a long time and raised children in that home. There are so many memories attached to the molding, flooring, and other parts of the home that aren’t easily packed up in a moving truck.
But, downsizing is a smart decision if: you now have fewer householders, you aren’t using several rooms in your home, you are going through a financial challenge, you aren’t able to maintain your home due to illness or other new stresses like longer travel to a new job.
It’s interesting, as humans, we can figure out a way live in whatever space we are given. It’s just like work expands to fill time, our possessions and activities expand when we have the space to accommodate them.
When packing for a move, or packing for a trip, it’s important to take note of those things that you touch every morning, every day. Those are your essentials. You’ll need your toothbrush, your spoons, your pillow.
Then the next layer is the things that make you smile. The stuff that turns your house into a home are important elements. Put a little red dot on those items, just like at a gallery.
But, be discriminating. If you feel that you need to put a dot on something just because your sister-mother-grandfather gave it to you or that you know it has value, it shouldn’t make the cut. It should go in another category, like a blue dot, where you let your closest loved ones, children or siblings or parents, etc., have an opportunity to have those items in their homes.
As far as furniture, and making it all fit, it’s important to take a step back and take a look at what you own from a stranger’s perspective. Just because you have used that table in your kitchen for 35 years, doesn’t mean it can’t be used as a desk or something else in your new place. A dresser that was once your daughter’s could actually fit inside your new smaller house, so maybe your dresser isn’t the best piece to take with you. And you can break up a dining room set. Take four of the chairs from your formal dining set, and sell the big table and the rest of the chairs.
And that molding that has your kids height markings? Well, you can actually cut out that piece of trim, and replace it. Take that molding with you and highlight it in your new home.
At the end of the day, and at the end of the move, the most important thing is that your home feels like home.
And after many months of moving furniture around, hanging and re-hanging artwork and photos, and meeting new neighbors, my parents’ new home is really starting to feel more like their home.
Check out more smaller house design tips here.
