After 26 years in a house large enough for kids, their friends, family visits and people just showing up, we downsized. Have you considered it? If you are a senior-boomer chances are you have. In fact we just moved into an area where everyone is a boomer-senior and every new house is a downsize home from what the residents used to have. Downsizing to the Empty Nester Home is something thousands of us boomer seniors are doing!
We spent a lot of time talking about it, asking friends and kids and architects about it, and we still weren’t ready. Downsizing to the Empty Nester Home is not, you see, for the faint of heart. I’m going to bet that you, like us, have no idea how much you have accumulated over 25-30 years in a big and spacious place! The Transition is HUGE.
Start Giving Stuff Away
So here is a bit of a primer for any boomer-seniors about to make the big move:
Start divesting of stuff as soon as possible, far in advance of any move. Make it a serious weekly activity. To rips to Salvation Army or Goodwill, trips to the used furniture resale shops, and trips to the dump. Trips to the library to donate the hundred or so books you read ten years ago and have since used as decoration. Trips to the antique store to divest some of those family things you never liked in the first place. We divested boxes upon boxes – and it still wasn’t enough!
Evaluate your furniture. What do you absolutely want to keep and what are you tired of? We wanted a new bedroom set after using our past lovely but tired set used for 35 years. We wanted a china cabinet in our dining area but didn’t want the one we had. And so on. Make trips to the resale stores, or list items on Craig’s list. Your house may become a little empty sooner than you’d like, but it will help you think about what you really want to give the style and personality to your new home.
Figure Out The Layout You Want for your Empty Nester Home
When Downsizing to the Empty Nester Home, take a serious role in evaluating how big you want your new home to be. Make drawings, or – if you are like me – actually use an online design or architecture program to develop a prototype for the house you want. We had some specifics in mind that we couldn’t find in most stock architectural plans, for example a music area dedicated to my grand piano; a study that was separate from the great room; a cook’s kitchen; and a large master suite. We DIDN’t want lots of extra closets because we knew we would just become pack rats once again. And, we wanted a modest-sized guest room and bath that would be private and comfortable. Because we both still work, my husband and I wanted two distinct areas for our computer desks.
Once we had the basic layout figured out, we did an interesting exercise: we took all our existing furniture that we were “sure” would fit and started placing little mock ups of it, exact to scale, in the rooms we designed. In some cases, it meant having to go back to the drawing board on design. In other cases, we realized that our furniture edits had to be deeper than we’d imagined. All those family heirlooms that didn’t fit soon found their way to the antique store.
Practice Fitting Furniture in the Rooms
After we figured out the layout and how we wanted to face the house, we looked for a lot. We wanted a parcel that would fit our house like a glove. But, we didn’t want to face whole redo of the plans we’d developed. We wanted to keep things small. It is amazing how quickly plans for a small house can grow to a larger house!
We edited and edited to keep things small. So much so that our plans actually dictated the type of interior doors we used! We put in barn doors in some places to save space. In other spots we made sure to have 36 inch wide doors. Why? so that if in our older years we ever needed a wheelchair – hard to think of that! – we could get through the rooms. It took a while, but we eventually found a lovely spot. It was perfect for the layout and views we’d imagined. And it turned out that all our neighbors were boomer-seniors as well. All of them had gone through the same editing process in this huge shift in our lives.
You may be purchasing an an already-built house. Go through the same steps so you are sure the house has exactly what works for you.
Now that we have Downsized to the Empty Nester Home, we look around and wonder how we ever filled up a larger home. How did we ever have the time to keep such a large place clean! We strove for a low maintenance interior and it lives up to it. Cleaning is a cynch. Now that’s the place for me!
Lessons learned: start early. Plan on a major transition in the furnishings and belongings around you in your home. Empty out entire rooms! Design your new house to exactly fit your desired furnishings and footprint, not the other way around. Create the spaces you need to make your lifestyle work. Find a lot that fits the house you have planned, not the other way around. Use the transition as a time to re-evaluate how you want your furnishings and “stuff.” As it was, we ended up carting more to the used furniture store!
-Morningmountainview
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