Moving to a smaller home – are you fully prepared?

Many of us at some stage in our lives may find ourselves either thinking of or indeed having to consider the prospect of downsizing our homes.  Perhaps the children have left the nest or maybe your partner is no longer with you and your home is just too big and costly to maintain or maybe your mortgage is placing a strain on your finances.  With more favourable prices emerging on the property front, others might consider freeing up some equity by investing in something smaller.

Whatever the reason, preparing to move can be a stressful event but moving to a smaller space can pose a far greater challenge – especially if you are not fully prepared!

The longer we spend in a home the more we tend to accumulate over the years.  Most of us are guilty of hoarding too much of something, whether it is books, furniture, exercise equipment, tools, or clothes.  When moving to a smaller space, you will have to greatly scale back and dispose of many of your possessions, which can be a tricky, time consuming and an emotional process.

Time to let go!

Hard and all as it may seem you need to consider a major de-cluttering operation inside and out.  You need to be practical and realistic at all times as removal and storage are costly.  You need to consider the emotional strain of having to scale back and letting go. 

Prior to downsizing you need to be sure this is the right move for you! Ask yourself if you are ready to leave your old lifestyle, neighbours, space and many of your possessions behind?  You may find one of our previous blog posts useful http://www.placelift.ie/blog-entry/2016/9/12/deciding-to-sell-your-home

 11 Top tips for downsizing to a smaller home

1. Access your actual needs by looking at how you live your life daily and give priority to the activities and items that are already part of your lifestyle. Room by room evaluate what you have and what exactly you use and don’t use making a detailed list.

2. De-cluttering every cabinet, drawer and shelf unit in your home and only put back in what you could not live without. Be ruthless and honestly decide what to keep, what to give to charity, to recycling, to up cycle, to dispose of or to store.

3. Find out the measurements of your new space and if possible get floor plan as you will need to know the layout and whether your furniture will or won’t fit into your new space especially large items like your sofa and beds. The last thing you want is to move into a new cluttered living space.

4. Access your new storage space so that you will have a good idea of exactly what storage space you will be inheriting and this will give you an idea of what you will need to dispose of before moving.

5. Attack your old storage areas such as attic, closets and garage, any items you have not used for years, you don’t need them – do not hesitate and get rid of them at once!

6. Sell, donate, recycle, or upcycle as much as possible. Sell items of furniture perhaps at a car boot sale or online on DoneDeal.ie or Adverts.ie or clothing on Ebay.ie. Charitable organisations will greatly appreciate good quality home wares and clothing. Your local recycling centre will be of great benefit to you and consider rejuvenating some of your furniture pieces for your new place by up cycling some of your favourite pieces.

7. Get organised, before the move be placing your storage items into proper storage boxes (clear boxes, labelled) and on moving these can simply be placed in the new allocated storage space.

8. Move large items first, at the beginning of the move including all furniture as this will give you a better indication of where the smaller items will go. Sort it all into place as you go as you do not want to end up trying to navigate through cluttered rooms.

9. Put away storage items, directly into their allocated spaces where they will be out of the way.

10. Organise labelled boxed items, into their respective rooms and the unpacking can begin.

11. Organise your space as your pack, making the absolute most of your cabinet, drawer storage solutions as you unpack. A trip to Ikea might provide you with some inspirational storage ideas.

Downsizing dilema!

Downscaling will make the move so much easier, reducing your moving costs and avoiding a new cluttered living space or having to arrange expensive storage space for items you may never use.  Even the best of us would have difficulty with downsizing as we all tend to have far too much stuff!

There is a fabulous affordable storage company based in Dublin called Buska Boxes, which might prove really helpful with your move.  Check out www.buskaboxes.ie.  Buska deliver easy to pack storage boxes to your home, you then fill the boxes and get moving and once you are finished they will call and collect the boxes from your new home.  Buska also provide a low cost secure storage by the box service.

It's a win, win situation!

When your energy is fading and you are feeling the stress of it all, keep motivated by thinking of the reality of living small – reduced or eliminated financial worries with lower energy bills, property tax and house insurance costs.  No more time wasted on monotonous tasks of maintaining and cleaning a home that is too big for you BUT more time to ENJOY DOING WHAT YOU ENJOY DOING THE MOST!

Check out our selling a property page here.

Check out our selling portfolio here.  

For help with downsizing or moving to your new home, just get in touch with Placelift on 01 2548070