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Saying goodbye to a family home
The Calgary Herald has a helpful article on saying goodbye to the family home. My parent’s are most likely going to be moving out of their home in the next five to seven years. It will no doubt be an emotional and trying time for them. I’ve made a suggestion to them to have a giant yard sale to get rid of a lot of the things that they have accumulated over the years. (It worked well for us when we downsized.) From the article:
Kathy Roberts says there’s no denying saying goodbye to the family home can be tough, but she believes most of the stress that comes with downsizing is due in part to all the stuff people accumulate over the years.
Whether it’s children’s report cards, forgotten birthday presents stuffed in the closet, or old gardening tools and lawnmowers in the garage, Roberts says homes are a nesting ground for clutter.
Taking inventory of one’s belongings is “often a huge (job) because nobody realizes how much they accumulate over time,” says Roberts, who owns and operates Clutter Busters.
Since my parents will be downsizing significantly, they will have to get rid of quite a bit of stuff. If you have parents who are saying goodbye to a home that they have lived in for quite some time, you might want to suggest that they have a yard sale as a good place to start with clearing the clutter.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Overwhelm yourself
My wife and I have accumulated quite a collection of glassware over the years. It is quite ridiculous, to tell you the truth. We entertain on occasion, but we have no need for the amount of glassware currently in our possession. Even when we do have a party we only use a small fraction of the glassware.
As I have mentioned in the past, we are downsizing our living space and we must reduce the amount of stuff that we have. The kitchen was the room we tackled last. I came up with the idea of removing every last item from the cupboards to assess what we had on our hands. The end result was quite overwhelming.
You don’t really get a grasp of what you have stored away in those cupboards until you have it lying out for display. I got the same feeling when we had our yard sale last summer. I asked myself, “Where did all this stuff come from?” The accumulation of stuff is gradual, and it tends to sneak up on you. My wife and I have been married for almost nine years now and we have just recently become more conscious of all of the things we have brought into our home.
It is much easier to prepare a plan of attack when you can see the whole of your problem. The final result was a successful paring down of our kitchen inventory.
Popularity: 13% [?]
We’re downsizing our home
My wife and I have sold our home and are now in the market for a smaller one. When people asked us why we were selling, we responded by saying, “This house is just too big for us.” Then, the most common response to our reason was, “You don’t hear that too often.” I’m not exactly sure why we found our current home so enticing. Yes, it has tons of Victorian character that most early 20th century homes have, but the sheer size of the home was double of what we lived in prior to this house.
The houses we are currently looking at cut our living space by one-third. That is just about right in the middle of our first home and our current home. A recent post by Erin highlights the practice of “trading up.” I think my wife and I got caught up in the process of wanting to trade up, and we learned a valuable lesson. After living in this house for four-plus years, we realized that it wasn’t what we wanted at all. Luckily, we were able to sell our home for a reasonable profit and now we are in a position to downsize.
Now comes the fun part of getting rid of most of our furniture. We are going to replace beds with sleeper sofas and maybe a futon. We often have visitors and they need a place to sleep. Now, they won’t have their very own room, but I’m sure they’ll get over it.
This move will also be a great time to go through our belongings and create another opportunity for a yard sale. Our last one was a great success and was a key to uncluttering our home prior to showing it to prospective buyers. We are most likely going to list the large furniture items on Craigslist. That’s probably the easiest way for us to get rid of the now displaced furniture. I’ll continue to write about the process of downsizing as we make our way to our new home.
Popularity: 25% [?]
