A Guide to Decluttering & Downsizing Before Your Move

The transition from a house or condo to a retirement community can be bittersweet. On the one hand, you may be excited to start an exciting new chapter of your life. However, you’ll likely be downsizing, which means you need to give up a lot of your furniture or possessions. Since this can certainly be an overwhelming and emotional process, here are a few tips to help you downsize and declutter your home before your move.

Assess Your New Space

For most people, moving to a retirement community means you have to adapt to a smaller space. The first step to downsizing is to find out the dimensions of your new home, including the cabinet sizes and closet space. You can use this information to draw a to-scale plan and determine which pieces of furniture and other possessions will fit in the space. This glimpse of what your new home will look like can also help ease your stress and boost your excitement.

Consider Donating or Selling

While you might accept that not everything can come with you to your new home, it can be difficult to throw things out. Instead, encourage family members to sort through the items you won’t be keeping and take what they want. Next, contact local charities to find out what might be of use to people in need. Alternatively, anything that’s in good condition can be sold at online marketplaces or websites like Kijiji, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. It can be a lot easier to part with items you’ve had for a long time when you know they’ll be well looked after or given to people who need them more than you.

Bring Memories With You

When it comes to downsizing, it’s important to be practical and get rid of things you don’t need. However, this doesn’t mean you should part with your favourite heirlooms and sentimental items. Just be sure to prioritize and make sure you’ll have room in your new home. Consider whether some cherished belongings can be made more compact. For example, pictures in bulky photo albums can be scanned onto a computer for safe-keeping and displayed on rotation in a digital frame.

Find Out Why Retirement Concepts Is So Nice to Come Home To

At Retirement Concepts, we want to make sure your transition to a retirement community is as easy and stress-free as possible. We provide several levels of care, from independent living to long-term complex care, and offer a variety of services to help you feel safe and at home. Contact us for more information about our locations in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.