Are you ready to give up your home for a smaller place to live? Do you long to move to the city so you can walk to all those places you love to spend your time now that you have plenty of it? Are you ready for less stuff to dust? Are you overwhelmed by a lifetime of belongings that seem to be possessing you rather than the other way around? Are you faced with a spouse that resists giving up his garden, his barcalounger, and a gazillion slides that no one wants to look at again?
Well, a lot of us ElderChicks would like to deal with these issues. But the dreaded thought of downsizing is usually enough to send us to the couch with a case of extreme vapors.I went through this seven years ago. What was also impelling me was the knowledge that even though my husband had passed the five-year cancer-free watermark, the dark thought lurking in my mind was that one of us –probably me— might have to care for the other or worse, be left alone. I knew that if I were the caregiver or widow, I would not want to have the responsibility of either managing my beloved three-story house or living alone in it. Nor did I particularly want to get cracking on the task of doing something about it.
What was an ElderChick to do?
I settled on a plan. First I had to convince my husband that a move was the only sensible thing to do. Not easy! I was considerably helped by the fact that two of his friends had just made such a move –their wives’ first choice, not theirs— and it took them each about ten minutes to adjust to their lighter load of responsibilities. It turned out they loved their new digs. My husband didn’t admit this, but I knew he had taken notice.
The second task was to unload the accumulation of things from a long and busy marriage. In our big house I had a big basement. I had long ago learned that once the children leave the nest, the house they grew up in remains terribly important because it becomes the place they store their stuff. My children live in England, California, and Massachusetts. So I sat on the floor in the basement and got on the phone. I went through all their things one by one –with them at the other end of the line— and told them I was shipping all their things to them this week. Was there anything they could bear to part with? You’d be amazed at how little they wanted when they heard that as of next week their stuff had to fit in their closets. This process thinned out the clutter considerably.
The third task was to decide what to do with the rest. I divided the basement into four quadrants. In one quadrant I put the things I planned to give to a foundation which could use the furniture. Happy to receive it, they brought a van and took it away. In the second quadrant, I put a few items I hoped to, and actually did, sell. The third quadrant contained a pile of things for donation to Good Will. The fourth quadrant contained things I wanted to take to the new condo that had been stored in the basement. I’m ashamed to say that a few of those boxes had been stored intact from a previous move and to this day they haven’t been unpacked! I’m not even sure what they contain under the mysterious label Mementos.
As you may have guessed, our house had several more rooms than our new condo has. The young couple who bought our house did not own nearly enough furniture to fill the rooms and they were as delighted to buy what we didn’t want as we were to sell it to them. This made the move much easier for all of us.
Make no mistake: downsizing is no walk in the park. Cleaning out a lifetime of memories is difficult. But I have to say, when it’s done, it’s a good feeling. My husband and I actually felt lighter and less burdened once the task was done. What’s more, we didn’t miss any of it.
My husband has since died. Our last two years together were dominated by the realization of our worst fears as his terrible illness took over our lives. We were eternally grateful that the happy memories of our family home were safely in our hearts and not a burden on our backs. We were so pleased that we had been clever enough to have done our downsizing while we were still able to share both its work and pleasures. [Please leave a comment here.]
ElderChicks 
Hi, Bobby…
You’re ever so right about the difficulty of downsizing. My wife and I sold our large home in 2005, then gave away and tossed out a bunch of “stuff.” As we moved to Peru to do volunteer work, we put all of our remaining things in storage. We were convinced that we did a pretty good job of getting rid of unnecessary items. After returning to the United States in 2008, we purchased a smaller home. We still have boxes of “treasures” in the garage.
Bill
You’re inspiring me. Although I hope to remain in our 4-story house for the foreseeable future, I realize it’s time to start really looking at our “bunch of stuff” with a fresh eye. Boxes of books are already lined up to be taken to the Free Library donations shop. (Nobody wanted the 1962 World Book set. I can’t imagine why.)
Downsizing my 4 story building and gallery was one mammoth
endeavor, and having to do it alone was surely no picnic.
But is amazing that after you have tossed, given and sold off the “stuff”, and you feel so good, you suddenly discover, that you are at it again—adding more “stuff ” to your life!! And that’s what
happened to me. The book shelves are full again, the”chotches” are all over the place…. Must be some sorta disease!!!!
Bobby, what a good description of your triumph over the problems of downsizing. I haven’t achieved that yet, and probably won’t. I am still living in our huge old house filled the detritus of 53 years in this house. But I am spending most of my spare time going through Abbott’s things. He never threw anything away, he saved every letter in the envelope it came in. So I am opening and examining a mountain of pieces of paper. He was also an insatiable collector of newspaper and magazine articles on his favorite subjects: trees, birds, wildflowers, urban living – especially downtowns. It is hard to discard these yellowing pieces of his collections, but I am managing to do it a few hours at a time. I wonder if I can finish this summer?
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my wife and I are considering building a second garage on our property. In part to house the travel trailer which we’re about to buy. And in part to store the “treasures” we don’t seem to be able to part with.
Downsizing…The word sent me to depression. To me it meant change..(I’ve never been good at that) .. When my husband and I decided to move from our home of forty-seven years , I had a difficult time. Like Jimmy Durante’s song, “Did you ever have the feeling you wanted to go but you wanted to stay?” Well , that describes my situation. I was afraid to let go.. afraid of the future .. It was clearly time to move on, but emotions and intellect collided. Each discard was a wrenching experience. With professional help, I came to understand that one makes his/her own path on life’s journey . It sounds a little trite but downsizing awakened me to understand that we take ourselves with us wherever we go… I learned from an old saying that: “Yesterday is history….Tomorrow is a mystery, but the present is a gift. ” Enjoy the moment! Don’t worry! Be happy! You can always find that something you have scrapped, your mind can get it back!…That is if you want it.
To Bill Birnbaum:
Just don’t use the travel trailer as more storage space! And be sure to leave enough room around it to get out of the garage and on your way.
Shirel, your words are so wise! Yes we do take ourselves with us wherever we go –both the good memories and the lemonade. For me that means don’t be afraid of the future. Change doesn’t mean that you are losing the past. It means that you’re putting it somewhere else.
Joan, downsizing doesn’t mean getting rid of beloved things. Sometimes it just means organizing them better. Maybe your children and grandchildren would like some of Abbott’s letters or other family treasures. Maybe some things could be put in boxes and stored and if you find you really don’t miss them, they could be discarded. I hope you are making progress toward your downsizing goal since it’s now almost August. Get busy!!!!
I’ve thought of downsizing a year after my husband died. I looked at smaller one story homes and was so surprised at how much they cost! Property taxes in California is enormous. It has been 6 years since Kendal died and I decided to stay in our home, a 4 bedroom, 2 story house that is filled to the brim with ‘stuff.’ I plan to take care of it one of these days. Have procrastinated long enough, will be brave and tackle the job soon. I hope to clean out the garage first and today is the 3rd day I’ve been throwing stuff out. I hope to have some of it done before the New Year Wish me luck folks! ☺☺☺
This is the massive elephant in mine and my husband’s lives right now. We are approaching 80, have serious health problems, and a 3 story Victorian with full basement. Oy. He is definitely a hoarder. I have to sneak newspapers and junk mail into recycling. We can’t afford a pro to help. It’s overwhelming. But I do find examples like this encouraging. Thank you, for outlining your process. You have some great ideas, I’m going to try.(It’s 2019, as I write. An update from you would be great!)
Downsizing was both a critical decision and an emotional one at the same time. My then-husband and I had decided together to downsize and move to our summer home two states away (but still within commuting distance for me, via rail; he’d retired). We were in the process of weeding and packing, and had listed our house on a Weds. The realtors came to take the picutres on Saturday, and my husband passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday. So, not only was I left with finalizing the “weeding” of our primary home, but also of determining what to do with our summer home. I held off for a year and, with the help of my sisters and daughter, we spent a full long weekend dealing with household items at our primary residence, and another weekend weeding thru closets (will I ever be a size 10 again? Goodwill got 20+ bags). While my house was on the market, I determined exactly what I’d take when I moved into a townhouse, and sold most of the rest via Facebook Marketplace. What remained when to Habitat for Humanity (they sent a truck). When time came to sell the summer home, I sold it furnished and just took the personal and important momemtos — the rest stayed. It’s tough to do, but once you “disconnect,” it’s easier. There’s still quite a bit of pairing down to do (I found a totla of 37 bottles of wine in our primary house, and our wine refrig at our getaway had 52 bottles …), but it will get done over time. Cheers!
Cleaning out dad’s place was rather therapeutic for both of us! We sold what we could (mostly on ebay) and actually made some ok money for things we were fully prepared to throw out. Gave away a bunch of stuff to anyone in the family who wanted it. And donated the rest to charity. The trick for us was focusing on one room at a time.