Moving House: How To Prepare for Downsizing

Downsizing can be a wholly positive life decision to make, although you might find it emotionally daunting to leave a home that holds tons of precious memories for you. There are many reasons why people decide to downsize property, from children growing up and leaving the family home, to retirement, divorce, or simply wanting lower levels of household maintenance to take care of. 

Maintaining a large size home can become a bit burdensome after a while. Hopefully, downsizing will help to lighten your load to make everyday life easier and less stressful for you. 

Moving house is without a doubt a big change and something that you need to make preparations for. You won’t be able to do it all in one day! So, to help you out a bit, here are some tips on how you can prepare for downsizing. 

How to Prepare to Downsize Your Home

1. Assess the floor plan of your new home 

Assessing a detailed floor plan with dimensions and measurements will allow you to work out whether the furniture will intend to bring to your new downsized property will fit. If there’s not enough space, you may have to get new furniture and home decor items that are smaller, or even get rid of some things.

2. Take unwanted items to your local charity shop

Using charity shops is a great way to avoid unnecessary wastage when you are clearing your belongings when downsizing homes. Do you have clothes in perfectly good condition that somebody else could enjoy wearing? Support a valuable cause and send them to a charity shop near you.

The same goes for unwanted furniture and household items, charity shops will also gladly take those off your hands. You will find that you have considerably less space after downsizing, and charity shops can help to ensure your unwanted items go to good use.

3. Get smaller beds

Be realistic about the space you will have after downsizing, you may need to make some tough choices. Have you got large double beds at the moment that will not fit into the bedrooms at the downsized home you are moving into? If so, try replacing your double beds with single beds. This will give you more floor space in your new bedrooms and make bedroom storage easier.

4. Communicate first before getting rid of things belonging to others

You mustn’t forget to consult and communicate before you decide to throw away or donate anyone else’s belongings in your home to a charity shop. Have your kids left home and you are now an empty nester who has taken the choice to downsize? Be sure to contact your children before making any decisions on getting rid of their things still at your place when you are moving home.

5. Go paperless as much as you can

Having folders and paperwork all over the place will quickly clutter up your new smaller size home in no time. So, why not go digital and use cloud storage with some of your important paperwork such as taxes, bills, correspondences with your bank, pension paperwork and so on? 

One of the upsides of digital paperless storage is that it could help to free up space in your home after you downsize. 

6. Hire a self storage unit 

Moving into your smaller size home gradually is sensible because this will allow you more time to think more about what you want to put where. Hiring a secure self storage unit from a trusted provider can help you to move in gradually and smoothly. 

Looking to hire a self storage unit while you are in the process of downsizing? Take a look at the Now Storage storage containers in Basingstoke, this self storage provider provides you with access to your belongings seven days a week. 

7. You don’t have to get rid of everything 

Of course, there will be photos and special household items that you just don’t feel like getting rid of. That is fine, as long as you have a place to comfortably store them in the smaller size home you are moving into.

There is a wide range of benefits to moving to a smaller place if you feel it is the right time in your life to do so. Downsizing to a smaller home, you will also save yourself plenty of money due to lower bills, something which is pivotal in the cost of living crisis we are in. 

Hopefully, you now understand a fair bit more about what you can do to help you prepare for downsizing. Yes, downsizing is a big move, but it may turn out to be worth it all things considered.

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If you like this, check out some other articles in this Series:

Moving House – 15 Tips for a Stress Free Move

Moving House – Best Packing Tips

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