A friend of mine asked me the other day how I got rid of things when we had to move out of our house and had to downsize from 4000 square feet to 1000 square feet. Our move was out of necessity and unfortunately, this friend's husband left her and the one son at home so they can't afford to stay there. She now has her Mother living with her plus the son still at home, not able to afford much.
It brought back memories, some of which are recorded on this blog in past posts, and not all pleasant memories, for sure. We had lots of rooms in our 'dream home' as we had built it for a future resale and hoping a large family would enjoy it as we did at some 'far off future date.'. We didn't plan of course to 'lose' it like we did......
But when there are lots of spaces to fill, a person fills them so there won't be lots of bare areas.
I had started a year prior to our move in the 'sorting and getting rid of' stage of things. I started with a table in the huge garage with things that obviously we didn't need. As time went on, it got more serious; I was getting rid of things we could use but could live without. When it got down to the weeks before actually moving, things were gotten rid of that maybe we even could use and would have liked to keep.
Pieces of furniture were listed on Craigslist; some sold, some did not. Pieces of furniture were sold to friends, at a very reduced price. Light fixtures were taken down and sold to those who would appreciate them in their homes. Eventually the big commercial kitchen cook stove was sold and we finished our stay by cooking with microwave and toaster oven.
In our 'new' abode, the double garage is laid out in a single style, but tandem. So it is long and narrow and is located directly under one-half of our condo we live in. We didn't want the expense of a storage shed, so the only other solution to what we felt we had to keep to survive was to store things in this garage. Luckily there is a sturdy shelf across the back (end) of the garage which held a lot of boxes and things that wouldn't fit 'upstairs' in the condo. Luckily there were lots of parking places outside for our two vehicles, one even designated just to us.
The furniture we did keep was able to all get inside the condo, some areas being a little tight fit. Our master bedroom has an Eastern King bed that we didn't really want to part with and it takes up most of the room; then there is the dresser and two nightstands. The guest room had room for our twin guest beds, thankfully. Our living room now holds the living room couch plus a family room couch, facing each other but making lots of seating area. We were fortunate to have a condo with enough room to have a little dining room that holds our dining set including the big china cabinet and a teacup cabinet. Washer and dryer were included in addition to all the kitchen appliances so our washer and dryer, while still in our possession need to be sold.
All of this is not important but just an example of how things can be reduced, gotten rid of and life goes on and looking back, we have found we can live with so much less. This isn't an effort to criticize people who have lots of room and lots of things. This is normal to have rooms well furnished, but when the time comes to downsize, it is able to be done.
On a different note, another friend who is redecorating their home and updating bathrooms, etc., asked me how to downsize a home office area in their master bedroom. They are going to close in a closet in the next door bedroom and move their desk and shelves into this area and close it off with folding doors. She told me of all the papers, clutter and miscellaneous that makes up this office area and wondering what to do with it. I could only tell her of what we had to do. We used to have a home office for our family business. I know about file cabinets, filing, papers, clutter. We had to downsize to a rolling file box; about 18 inches square. We shredded old bank statements, old mortgage documents, old work orders for days, using the shredded paper to pack breakables in for our move.
Bank statements should be saved for a year; most banks have our statements online anyway, easy to be viewed at the touch of a few keyboard strokes. Real estate documents are a little different, current ones in a safe file. Licenses, pink slips, birth certificates, etc. need to be in a secure area too. All these thing can fit in this rolling file box we have. Bill payment stubs can be kept until the next month; discard last month's. Sometimes I just enter the payment on my computer bill pay and just throw the bill paper away. The record is there on the computer anyway. It is amazing how little paperwork we need to keep. Even personal letters we receive; read them twice and toss them in the trash. Downsize the paper! What a wonderful feeling. Throw away magazines month by month. Newspapers day by day. In fact, don't even subscribe to a newspaper....it is all online on the computer.
My next project is to take all loose pictures and get them into organized albums; categorized by children, grandchildren, friends, acquaintances, etc. How nice to have them in albums and not a box.
Hope this will give someone a few pointers on downsizing and decluttering!
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