Moving to Independent Living doesn’t have to feel like leaving part of yourself behind. It means upgrading your lifestyle so you can focus on living life to the fullest. Downsizing to an apartment is about narrowing down to your most important items that will help you feel at home.
At Sholom, we like to say rightsizing because Independent Living at Knollwood Place Apartments is an upgraded lifestyle where you can Find Your Belonging. Instead of doing chores, you can focus on fun, friendship, and enjoying life.
Key Takeaways
- Downsizing your home is often the first step in upgrading to a fuller life in Independent Living. We like to call it rightsizing.
- Rightsizing is more manageable when you start early, stay organized, and break it into smaller tasks.
- Getting help from family, friends, and companies that specialize in downsizing for seniors can take the stress out of downsizing and moving.
- Our Welcome Home Program includes emotional and practical support with downsizing, through our partnerships with trusted services.
Table of Contents
Downsizing Tips for Seniors: Think of it as Rightsizing
6. Use Services that Help with Downsizing for Seniors
7. Go Through Paperwork Carefully
8. Get to Know Your New Future Home and Community
Downsizing Tips for Seniors: Think of it as Rightsizing
You may not need as much space for every tool, gadget, or collection you’ve gathered over the years, but that does not mean giving up the things you love. Favorite furniture, meaningful decor, family photos, and other cherished belongings can still come with you.
Our downsizing tips for seniors will help you discover what to keep, what you can let go of, and how to get through the process.
1. Start Early
Give yourself the gift of time. Start several months ahead of the move, even if you haven’t chosen your future independent living community yet. Starting early gives you time to do two things:
- Give every item the careful consideration it deserves
- Prepare you emotionally for the move
Letting go of the current chapter means saying goodbye to a home filled with memories. By starting early, you can pace yourself so that the goodbye starts to feel more like nostalgia than letting go.
2. Start with Easy Items
The idea of downsizing a house may make your mind go right to sentimental items you might have to leave behind. But you don’t have to start with the tough decisions. Start with items you can part with easily. You don’t even have to think of it as downsizing at first, but decluttering. Here are some items to start with:
- Items you no longer use
- Non-sentimental items
- Items you have multiples of
- Tools and outdoor equipment
Save the family heirlooms, furniture pieces you love, fine China, and other sentimental items for later in the process.
3. Take It One Room at a Time
Rightsizing is a big job if you try to tackle it all at once. Breaking it into smaller tasks makes all the difference. Start with one room, preferably one without sentimental items. Finish that room, then go to the next one.
Bathrooms and Utility Rooms
Go through the bathroom, laundry room, mud room, utility room, and junk drawers and throw out or box up the following:
- Expired medications
- Cosmetics and toiletries you don’t use or need
- Old cleaning supplies you no longer use or can replace
- Tools and hardware
- Miscellaneous items you kept for a rainy day but haven’t used
Closets and Attics
Closets and attics are often filled with sentimental items. Ask friends or family members to help you go through them. Keep clothing for all four seasons, but get rid of anything you haven’t worn in the past 12 months.
Living Spaces and Bedrooms
Keep anything that will help you feel at home in your new apartment in independent living. You’ll be able to take furniture, lamps, clocks, wall art, and other decor. For king-size beds and other large furniture, check with your community to confirm they’ll fit. Jewelry you wear regularly can go to independent living with you, but consider leaving valuables with family members.
Kitchen and Dining
If your independent living community provides all three meals, you’ll need very little, maybe a few water glasses. If you’ll still prepare your own meals, you’ll need one or two place settings and any pots, pans, and bowls you normally use. However, consider letting go of the following:
- China cabinets
- Extra sets of dishes
- Complex cooking equipment
- Microwave oven, as this is usually provided
4. Stay Organized
Being organized helps the moving and downsizing process feel manageable. Here are some tips:
- Pack similar items into each box and mark each box, naming the room and the types of items.
- Keep a written list of furniture you decide to keep.
- Use several small boxes instead of a few large boxes to make it easier to keep similar items together and carry them.
- Use a sorting system with marked spaces for what you will keep, gift, sell, donate, and discard. Include an “undecided” pile.
5. Make it Fun
Going through a house filled with memories is a perfect project for families to do together. You may come across pictures of a family vacation, silly prizes you won for your child at a fair, or a science project a child completed. Old memories can be a source of laughter and reflection that takes you back to those good old days.
Even when sentimental items aren’t involved, the packing, decision process, and time together can make the whole process enjoyable. It’s a perfect prelude to the types of social engagement you’ll experience at a community like Knollwood Place.
6. Use Services that Help with Downsizing for Seniors
Outside help is available if downsizing your home feels like too much for you and your family.
- Estate sale companies can hold on-site sales and will often donate or dispose of items that don’t sell.
- A senior moving manager can provide emotional support and help with packing, sorting, and moving.
You can choose from many senior move managers in the Twin Cities. Before you reach out to these companies on your own, ask your community for a recommendation.
At Knollwood Place, we’re here to support you through every stage of your move through our Welcome Home Program. We can help you find emotional support and practical help with downsizing, thanks to our partnerships with local, trusted move management partners, that are members of NASMM. Our residents will call you, invite you to activities, and introduce you to other residents. You’ll feel at home here before you even get here.
7. Go Through Paperwork Carefully
Dedicate at least a day to going through paperwork and consider keeping the following:
- Tax records less than five years old
- Insurance documents for current policies
- Medical records
- Sentimental items like letters, newspaper articles, and stories
Storing images of sentimental items and important documents in a digital format saves space and can help you avoid fading, disintegration, or loss. You can access them on a phone or any computer. A move-in manager, child, or grandchild can help you with this. For anything that doesn’t work in a digital format, you could create a scrapbook.
If you have documents containing personal information that you need to throw away, shred them first. If you are unable to shred them yourself, a local shredding service can do it for you.
8. Get to Know Your New Future Home and Community
Before you make any final rightsizing decisions, make sure you understand what the community provides. Tour the community a few times and talk to residents and team members to find out exactly what you’ll need. Be sure to request the following:
- A printed floor plan with dimensions of each space
- A list of items to bring
- A full description of dining options
Our Future Neighbors Program makes it easy to plan your move. Through this program, we provide personalized tours, complimentary dining experiences, and priority notification when the apartment type you want becomes available.
