Time to Move?
My parents live in an assisted living facility with limited space. They have moved several times – from a large home to independent living, from independent living to assisted living. Each time we have had to downsize and make hard choices about what to take. I created space plan layouts for the new places and helped my parents sort through their treasures to decide what would reasonably fit in the home. Because of the planning and downsizing on the front end, the moves went well and we didn’t end up with more than we needed on the back end.
In contrast, there was a woman who moved from a large home into the assisted living facility. She had help from well-meaning neighbors to make the move, but not necessarily the right kind of help. After her move, she was left with an apartment stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes and furniture. The apartment was over capacity, and the woman did not have the energy to sort through the boxes or the support to make the hundreds of decisions she needed to make to thin down her possessions so they would fit in her apartment. Not only was the apartment cluttered, it posed a huge safety problem because walkways were not clear and needed items were not unpacked.
While this may be an extreme case of poor move planning, the truth is that many people fail to properly prepare for a move and arrive at their new homes with things they don’t need, don’t use, and don’t fit in their new place.
Let’s take a related scenario. Let’s say that you are ready to put your house on the market and you have called in the real estate agent. If your house is cluttered and contains too much furniture, your agent may suggest that you rent a storage unit and remove some of the contents. STOP RIGHT THERE! While I appreciate the agent’s interest in getting the house on the market soon, you are only causing yourself more problems by renting that storage unit. It is unlikely that you will thin down the items in the storage unit before the movers come, and you will just tell the movers to pack everything - and all that stuff will end up at your new house. A better approach is to declutter and downsize well in advance of putting your home on the market.
Here are a few tips to help you pare down those possessions before the move.
- Go room by room and donate, sell or give away everything you don’t love, don’t use, and don’t want to take to the new house.
- Do a space plan layout to figure out what furniture will fit in your new home. Document the plan and save it for moving day. Donate, sell, or give away everything that won’t fit.
- Sort thorough each item in your closets and donate, sell or give away everything that you don’t love, doesn’t fit, or you don’t wear.
- Clean out the garage, pantry, bathrooms, and cabinets using the same criteria.
- Pack items that you want to take to the new home, but will not be using before the move. The packed boxes can be neatly stored in the garage or in a closet.
It may seem like a lot of work to declutter before the move, but the effort will save you time, money, and stress later. You won’t be packing and moving unneeded items, and you won’t have to figure out where to put things you don’t need in the new home.
So today we have discussed the front end of the move – the first step in making the entire move go smoothly. Packing, staging, moving, and unpacking are subjects for another day!
