by Martha Tobin
Moving from any home can be stressful but moving from a larger home to a smaller dwelling (i.e. condo or retirement residence) can be even more challenging.
Here are 6 tips and tricks to help make the process easier:
- Start early. Even if you don’t have a move date in mind, it’s never too early to declutter items you no longer need, use, love or want.
- Be realistic about the size of the next place you’ll likely be moving to (i.e. one bedroom, smaller kitchen, one bathroom, no basement or garage)
- Start in the least used room of your current home (i.e. basement or spare room). Leave areas like the primary bedroom, bathrooms, office and kitchen for last.
- Work in one room at a time. This reduces the daunting nature of the overall process and keeps you more focused.
- In that room start with items on the floor first and work your way up (i.e. surfaces and then shelving). This allows you to create space to sort and review items.
- Set up three categories:
- Keep for now (items needed until you move)
- Keep for later (items only needed after you move)
- Items to purge (donate, give to others, sell trash or recycle)
Decluttering before you move (and ideally giving yourself lots of time to do it) will always reduce your stress and feelings of overwhelm when you are downsizing.
Reach out to book a FREE consultation. And on any job we’ll take your donations away with us after every session.