The transition of moving out of your home can be a very intimidating process. This journey first begins with sorting through decades worth of items. Most of these items have important meanings behind them along with countless memories. Although dealing with the hassle of downsizing can be overwhelming, there are many tips that can help you accomplish this task.
What does it mean to downsize?
When it comes to moving your loved one out of their house and into a different living situation, it can bring out many emotions. Moving into a senior living community offers your loved one a sense of independence and freedom, just as they had before. Your loved one’s schedule will become more flexible considering that they won’t have the worries and stress that come along with owning a house. On the other hand, this can also be a difficult transition considering that downsizing can come with stress and anxiety. Your loved one can feel easily overwhelmed considering that they have spent a great amount of their life in their houses.
Downsizing Discussion
Downsizing isn’t an easy topic to discuss with your loved one. There are many different ways to approach this topic without causing too many negative emotions. In this process, your loved one must be part of this conversation. If they aren’t an active contributor in this conversation, they could feel pressured and become frustrated later in the process because of this missed step.
Tips to help outline this discussion…
- Have a positive attitude. By showing negative emotions, it can make the transition even harder on your loved one.
- Be understanding. This might be a very difficult time in your loved one’s life. Try to put yourself in their shoes to help better understand what they are feeling and going through.
- Support them through this next step in their life. Help them get excited about moving into their new living space.
- Respect the items that they wish to keep. Even though this may be one of the hardest tips, this is a very crucial step. If they aren’t wanting to give away something of theirs, do not force them to.
Steps to Downsizing
Starting Early
- Downsizing should not be a rushed process but instead, something that you work on little by little everyday. Surprisingly, downsizing seems like an easy concept but will take a lot longer than you would expect. This process can typically last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Downsizing can either be a stressful or nonstressful task depending on how organized the process is and how effectively it is executed.
Starting With the Small Items
- Although many believe it makes more sense to start with the bigger rooms and items, many found that it’s the complete opposite. The bigger rooms normally have more emotional attachment compared to the smaller rooms in the house. The laundry room is a great place to start since there aren’t as many items that your loved one would be emotionally attached to.
- The rooms that are known to be the hardest are the basements/garages and attics. These rooms are normally filled with old hobbies, clutter, and all sorts of decorations.
Duplicates
- Getting rid of duplicates is an important task. Most people don’t realize they have duplicates until they are put side by side.
- The room that is notorious for having duplicates, is the kitchen. If there are any duplicates that your loved one has an emotional attachment to, offer to take it off their hands and relocate it to your house.
Yes, No, Maybe Piles
- Implementing a yes or no area will take away the urge to keep unnecessary items.
- Although a maybe pile sounds like a great idea right away, you will soon realize that your maybe pile will accumulate more than both your yes and no pile combined.
Floor Plans
- It’s a great idea to request the floor plan of the room before you and your loved one begin the downsizing process.
- By having this information, you can pre-plan what your loved one’s new space will look like.
- Having an idea of how much room you will have helps to pre-plan what will fit and what won’t.
Packing
- When boxing up your loved one’s items, remember to label the boxes. By doing this, it will save a great amount of time when you are unboxing and moving your loved one into their new place.
- Remember to keep your important items such as keys, wallet, and cell phone in a different area to avoid packing them away and not being able to locate them when needed.
There are many steps to moving your loved one into a new development. At Woodstone, we are fully committed to helping you every step of the way. This can be an easy transition if you take the right steps. Visit us at Woodstone today to learn more!
Best,
Danielle Morrow
Marketing Specialist
