Downsizing from home to apartment...

[cynatnite]

So, in July we're moving to a 1000 square foot apartment out of a 2700 square foot house. We need easier one level living for the husband who has problems with his knee and ankle. Plus, it's more economical as well.

That's some major footage we're losing. My brain is all about how this going to happen. The best I can figure is the more organized we are, the better. Get creative with storage. The apartment has pretty big closets.

We've got a downstairs basement apartment to clean out, a shed, a utility room plus a lot of upstairs to go through as well.

We might rent a storage unit for now until we decide on how much we really want to keep.

Most of the furniture, we're selling. The rooms are smaller and some of our furniture is pretty big and takes up space.

Downsizing is scary, but it's exciting, too.

[Laurelin]

1. I sympathize

In July I'm moving to the Netherlands, so I am also frantically downsizing. I'm glad you're keeping your perspective and staying positive. Good luck with it all!

[msongs]

2. have a few yard/estate sales. recently move from California to Hawaii and...

had a bunch of sales. only kept a few small furnitures that reminded me of family. otherwise got rid of 80% and do not miss any of it. get rid of stuff then get rid of more. you won't miss most of it.

[TygrBright]

3. We're downsizing, too!

Not quite as drastic a change as you, but we're preparing to move from a 2000 sf, 2-story home to (hopefully, when we find the right one) a one-story in the 1200-1300 sf range.

I'm also trying from a distance to help my 89-year-old mother make the shift from a 2-bedroom one-story half-duplex (about 1500 sf) to a much smaller, 800 sf studio Independent-to-Assisted Living unit. She's getting on-the-spot help from my sister, but it's a big move for her.

And I love your storage unit idea. We're going to try that with Mom, and it's on my 'strategies' list for our own move as well.

In the mean time, the Smartest Person I Know gave me this wise advice: Don't try to do each task, each room, etc., all at once. Start with the EASY things in each place and whittle down the tonnage, so to speak.

For example, I did the upstairs linen closet, Stage One, and put all the sheets in colors and sizes we'll never use again, towels ditto, pillow covers that matched long-decayed-and-discarded coverlets, the "spare" used comforter kept "just in case" when we replaced it with a new one, the plastic bag of carefully hoarded linen packaging (those zippered bags that sheets and bedding come in), etc. in a "donate" pile.

We set aside one morning or afternoon a week to visit places we can donate stuff to. In the case of the linen closet discards it was the animal shelter which gratefully accepted ALL the towels, the old mattress pad, etc., then everything they didn't want we took to a homeless shelter.

That made enough space in the linen closet that I can actually SEE the size of the remaining problem, and also have some space to use in sorting and preparing discards from the guest bedroom and bathroom storage.

I put a grocery bag upstairs and one downstairs and pick one bookshelf every other day or so to JUST pull out the really easy discards- old textbooks, thrillers neither of us wants to re-read, gardening how-tos from a zone I no longer live in, outdated nonfiction, etc.

When a bag is full I add it to the trunk of my car and when the trunk is full I take it to one of several local community volunteer libraries in our rural areas- a couple of times volunteers driving into town have met me at a coffee shop for a pickup, too. I always tell them they are free to pass along, sell, or throw away what they can't use.

Little by little we are whittling it down and doing the easy stuff first creates momentum that helps me stay motivated.

determinedly,
Bright

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Very good advice. I like!

I wish that we had thought of the storage unit suggestion too. We finally did, and it's been wonderful. So what, a temporary bill to get more temporary storage space until we've gone through everything. The one thing we found prior to getting the storage unit was that having everything packed from the 'big' house (like you) to the smaller house (like you) was that every thing was in the way, that is, except for the stuff we knew that we had a space for was okay, but the rest of the stuff, I guess we thought, oh well, get it moved and we'll find a spot. Hasn't really worked too well.

Take care and good luck in your move. And thanks again for the great suggestions!

[blm]

4. I live in a town with a high population of older citizens. Habitat for Humanity

Restore is good to work with if selling your furniture and extra household items and garden tools becomes too much of a drain on you.

[mnhtnbb]

6. I just did this

although I had made the decision to separate from my husband of 32 years. He died before we divorced, but we did sell the 2700 sq ft. house and I am living in a 1029 sq ft apartment.

I had a hip replacement in mid-October and the house was under contract to close in mid-December. No way was I able to clear the place out on my own! I had been in a studio apartment (620 sq ft) and decided to upgrade to the 2 BR apartment (1029 sq ft). The first thing I had to do was decide what furniture I wanted to move to the new apartment and what furnishings I'd need to purchase. I spent a lot of time measuring and laying out furniture to make sure it would all fit.

The key to storage is to have pieces with multiple purposes. I bought a really nice wood, 2 drawer file cabinet. It doubles as an end table in my living room. I bought a bed frame that has 16 inches of space underneath it which is great for storage. I have four pieces of luggage all stored inside of each other--as well as my good leather travel tote bag--and it all fits under the bed.

I limited myself to one box of Christmas decorations which fits under the short coats in my coat closet.

I bought a night stand with two drawers for storage (and it has an electrical outlet in one drawer which is really convenient for charging devices).

The "coffee table" for the sofa bed in what I use as a study (and is the guest bedroom) is a trunk that holds the pillows for the sofa bed.

The TV stand in the living room has cabinets under it for storage.

Chests of drawers are very useful. I bought a small one for my master bathroom to give me more storage space. I brought four from the house.

I use plastic bins to rotate my clothes closet from spring/summer to fall/winter and the bins fit either under the bed or under the short clothes in the closet.


I hired an estate sales agency to clean out the house because I wasn't going to be able to do it due to recovering from surgery. They were worth every penny! They cleared out the attic, the garage, and EVERYTHING that was left in the house. They did have a minimum, though, so if you go that route be prepared to let them set prices and hire them before you start consigning or selling things on your own, or you may not have enough to make it worthwhile for an estate sales agent.

Good luck!

I LOVE my apartment. I wouldn't think of going back to a house.

[cynatnite]

7. A lot of great advice and I'm feeling not so overwhelmed, too...

My mother passed away which left me with her and my grandmother's things. I sold much of their furniture off, but there's still quite a bit. Mom was a pack-rat and there are a lot of boxes with stuff just thrown in that needs sorted through. I'd rather put that stuff in storage until we get moved and settled. Plus, we'll be storing things of our own as well.

We have to get rid of our grill since they won't allow anything but electric. I hate that because cookouts are a family thing that gets the kids and grandkids over. We're still debating that. The complex has a large swimming pool and an outdoor kitchen with lots of seating.

Christmas is something I won't have to think about for a while so I'm keeping most of my decorations. The tree was going to get replaced anyway.

I have over 1100 DVD's, Blu-rays, and 4K movies and TV series. I'm a huge collector and a part of me cries about this, but I have to cut that down to at least half. But when I think about it, there's a lot of them I haven't watched in a long time. Plus we stream a lot so some of these I won't miss too much.

Once we get through the shed and two of the rooms downstairs, all we'll need to worry about is the upstairs which isn't so bad. I relocated or got rid of most of it last year after Mom passed.

The closets are huge so I've already got ideas for organization to improve our storage capacity.

Anyway, thanks for the great advice!

[Lars39]

11. I've got boxes in storage to go thru also,

and a problem I’ve got is finding enough room to sort through them. Right now my dinky dining room is covered over and I still need more room to do it correctly.

Our storage room was big enough until we put the kayaks in it, although the lighting was pretty bad in there.

[c-rational]

8. Simplify, simplify, simplify. It will force you to live a cleaner life with less attachment to

physical belongings. This from someone who has lived with my wife in a 500 SF apartment for 30 years. You will also have less to to clean. Enjoy.

[blueinredohio]

9. I'm not moving but I've already got my spring cleaning done so

I've decided Im getting in the attic and getting rid of stuff. There's no sense keeping it if I never use it.