Have plans to finally move out of the family home and into an apartment or townhouse? Whether it’s off the back of a move to a new city, the kids moving out, or just to simplify your lifestyle, downsizing can happen in many phases of life and the transition comes with new considerations.
Downsizing can feel like the absolute nemesis of a home mover’s life. It highlights the fact that you will be transitioning into a new home that loses square footage and has less space to play around with – and we all know getting rid of ‘stuff’ is never a fun job. However, downsizing is more sustainable and can be a more fulfilling option in the long run – the less clutter you have in your life, the less stress you will feel in general. It’s incredible how quickly personal items and furniture can accumulate over the span of your life, thus there are definitely a lot of aspects to love about going smaller. Think about the benefits of lower costs, easier upkeep and a minimalist approach that means less pressure to keep up with the Jones’. With that said, here are 4 helpful tips covering the do’s and don’t of downsizing into your new and improved living space.
Assess Your Lifestyle
Determining and understanding your lifestyle needs is key to preventing the chances of holding onto unnecessary items and aiding with decision fatigue, especially when there are other family members or partners involved. Most of the time, the stress of downsizing comes from the constant debates in your mind that result in the indecisiveness of choosing what items to keep or toss. The easiest way to counter these issues is to take a hard look at every single item you pick up. Taking some time to be thorough and implement strict rules about what fits your current lifestyle and habits helps heaps in the decluttering process.
A quick tip is to write down a list of all the things you absolutely love and can’t live without, and another list of things you can easily give up and won’t think about in a week or so. If you come across something you haven’t used in the last few months or even a year, it’s definitely a sign you could bid farewell to it. If you find items that are hard to make a decision with, put it in a temporary pile and sort through them once again with a clear head after some time away from packing.
Analyse Your New Space
It’s always a smart idea to do your homework before making final decisions of the things that will be following you into your new home. By physically inspecting your space and figuring out dimensions and measurements of different rooms, the process of picking out furniture and decorative items from your old place becomes incredibly straightforward. Repurposing your furniture when downsizing from a house to an apartment may cause major setbacks to your decluttering process, this is because the furniture that works in a house may not translate to an apartment.
Instead, you should think outside the box in terms of finding innovative ways to create new space and decorative hacks that aids in maximising your new space. Rather than finding new interior inspiration for big housing aesthetics, focus your research on creative ways to make your small space useful, practical and comfortable at the same time. Figure out ways to build or purchase wall-mounted storage, floating shelves, multifunctional furniture in order to reap the most benefits from your new home. After all, bigger doesn’t always mean better!
Be Smart About Buying
The excitement of moving often comes with the price of home movers going on massive shopping sprees ahead of time to decorate their new living space, whether it be furniture or kitchen appliances. Oftentimes buying items ahead of time causes even more problems, as you are ultimately adding more stuff to the pre-existing list of items that you already own. Downsizing comes with the choice of living a more minimalist lifestyle, this means being mindful and only keeping a limited amount of items that you absolutely love. Thus, you should always remember: if you already have a similar item, then you can definitely afford to wait it out until you get a sense of the space you’re working with in the new home. If you catch yourself constantly thinking about that said item, you will always have the liberty to purchase it after moving.
Say No To Storage
The last thing you need lurking in the back of your mind is being swept up by desperately holding onto things that results in you paying more for extra space outside of your new home. The entire point of downsizing is to have less and to live a more manageable life, not simply opting for another storage place to hide more stuff. Renting a storage unit will only transfer your problems of owning too many things out of your sight but not out of your life, this will ultimately cost you far too much for it over time. Instead, you should be grabbing this opportunity to free yourself from duplicate items or furniture that you’ve always felt indifferent about – this is especially true in everyone’s kitchen or living room!