Downsize Today

Inspiration, motivation and guidance to ensure a smooth move to a smaller home.

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All That Stuff!

We Learn by Our Parents’ Examples

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too many sentimental collections and heirlooms go unwanted
Baby boomers are learning what NOT to do because they've seen their own parents struggle to let go of sentimental objects. They don't want their parents' collections of teapots or war memorabilia or or Hummel figurines, and they are becoming acutely aware that their own kids won't want family heirlooms and colledtions, either.

 

I had lunch today with a 50-something business associate who told the story of how his mother had insisted on living in the home he had grown up in, despite using only about three of the ten rooms in the place. It was a large home north of Philadelphia, on a large lot with a lovely view which she had enjoyed for 50 years. But his mom had health issues and found it difficult to do much beyond simply existing in the house. Joe and his sister lived hundreds of miles from her, and they tried in vain to help when they could, visiting as often as possible to do grocery shopping and taking her to appointments; calling neighbors to check on her; hiring help to make sure she was cared for. When snowstorms raged and the power went out and the home care workers didn't know how to operate the generator -- or when a tree was uprooted from the back yard and did major damage, Joe's patience started wearing thin.

As typically happens, she eventually fell and ended up in assisted living, leaving her house chock full of 50 years' worth of stuff.

Joe handled estate liquidation. It was not pretty. All the lovely items she'd held so near and dear were given away, some were sold in an estate sale, but a lot was just tossed. "No one wants stuff anymore. I sure didn't, and neither did my sister," he said.

Like many baby boomers, Joe learned from his mother's example and is now firmly entrenched in an uncluttered, downsized life. He sold his 5-bedroom home in Minneapolis and moved to the D.C. area, where he lives in a condo that he loves but is happy to leave when as often as possible. He is a frequent traveler who's totally unfettered and free and living a great life -- free from the burden of having too much stuff and free from maintenance and upkeep chores.

The New York Times published an article (August 20, 2017) on how seniors (75+), baby boomers (55-75) and boomers' children are handling the disposition -- and dispossession -- of stuff. Entitled "An Unwanted Inheritance" it describes the sensitive nature of what to do with the rooms full unwanted furniture, rugs, accessories, crystal and china, and all manner of other heirlooms and collectibles. "This is the first time we're seeing a kink in the chain of passing down mementos from one generation to another," said Mary Kay Buysse, executive director of the National Association of Move Managers, an organization that helps older people downsize.

Baby boomers have their own lives and either don't have room for any of their parents' stuff, or they don't want boxy "brown goods" such as armoires or ornate dining tables and ten accompanying chairs. I am very interested in family history and I would like a lot of my parents' things on some level, 30-year-old Travis Miscia said,"but I have to limit myself to what I would call primary-source documents like books and some pictures.

Some younger people (many of whom are the children of baby boomers) take their parents' items just to keep from hurting their feelings, but it typically ends up in storage or it's donated. Baby boomers are beyond that and know how to say no. Many are in the process of decluttering and downsizing themselves, or they've gone through estate liquidation woes with their parents, and they don't want or need what additional "things." Goodwill stores are flooded with the detritus from too many homes with too many "brown goods" -- such as depicted in a yard sale in my Clarendon neighborhood that the guy keeps repeating (can't sell the stuff) and in the photo of a Goodwill drop site in Arlington.

So freeing to get rid of clunky old stuff from rooms you don't use! But there's not much of a market for it, so don't think you're going to sell it for a lot of money. Just get it out of your way, as you move to your new life.

It's hard to see all the furniture in this photo ... but this is an example of how overloaded even Goodwill stores are with stuff. The sooner you can get it out of the way, on your way to downsizing, the better! Do estate sales, add to this pile, give to charitable organizations, try to sell on eBay or whatever. Downsize before you think you need to, because once you think you need to, it MAY be too late.

 

Instead, they're taking what they learned from their parents' examples and decluttering and downsizing while they're still young enough to travel and explore new lifestyles. Some are even deciding where to relocate (near children or grandchildren, to the beach, to a small town to start a second career, to a favorite travel destination where they'll ultimately retire). Many people I've met recently in the 55-to-65 age group -- like Joe today -- are acutely aware of the many reasons to downsize, chief among them to not only enjoy a simpler life in a smaller, more organized space, but also to write the story of their next 20 years with a different narrative than their parents used.

"The greatest gift I'm going to give my children is the knowledge that they won't have to deal with all the stuff I had to go through with my parents. And with the flexibility I have now that I don't have that big house -- which, incidentally, they visited once or twice a year -- I can treat everyone to a trip to Spain for Christmas, rather than force them into their childhood bedrooms. I'm living a new life, and they want to be a part of that," my friend Susan said.

 

Sentimental Crystal

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Sentimental finds while preparing for an estate sale: mother's and grandmother's crystal
Cleaning out my mother’s house and preparing for an estate sale, it broke my heart to let go of all of her mother’s crystal. Three sets of 12 glasses each, from the 1920s, same pattern. Lovely, but these days no one wants this type of stuff.

When it was time to sell my mother’s house and pretty much everything in it, it was heartbreaking to know how little of what was in the house was going to find a new home with me or any of my siblings. Her beloved bow-front china cabinet, about which she had told so many stories, was sold at auction and brought more than anything in the house. It just wasn’t something that would suit any one of her four children. I kept her sterling and a few lovely little things and each of my siblings has a few sentimental items. But when we needed to sell her place and the furnishings in the home in which we grew up, with homes of our own full of our own special stuff, we just had to turn our backs on Mom’s and Grandma’s stuff and hope new owners would appreciate that it was deeply meaningful to my mother.

Finds during estate sale
The orange cow pitcher was purchased by my mother as a birthday gift for her mom when she was seven years old (in 1931) and the horse-head bookends were a wedding gift to my parents in 1948. It’s essential to hold onto a few things, but crystal and big old armoires there just isn’t much of a market for. So prepare yourself for this fact: some of your stuff wlll be hard to part with, especially when you have to give it away because no one wants to buy it.

If you’re considering downsizing, start early and start with a plan. Read books on decluttering, such Marie Condo’s book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up; it’s a little tedious — some say silly — but if you dive in and get it done,  you’ll be more lighthearted than you’ve been in a while. Or read an oldie but a goodie, Keep, Sell or Toss by Harry L. Rinker. He’s been around a while and has great advice. Or look at “Downsizing the Family Home” by Marni Jameson. And if you’ve resisted getting rid of sentimental items, give this blog post from The Spruce some thought, then commit to making the hard choices about parting with beloved items which have no place in your new space.

If you’re facing an elective downsizing, consider starting immediately selling your best and most precious items. If your new space will be half as large as your current home, you WILL NOT have room for most of your sentimental items. Start putting a green dot on the ones that you want to sell and consider listing them on eBay or download one of the many apps that will help you sell items.

Hire a professional organizer. National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals has about 4,000 members from across the country. The idea is to get started before you think you need to, because once you KNOW you need to, it’s so much harder: you’re older and more exhausted and usually in a bigger hurry.

Even if  you start small, start getting rid of STUFF now that you don’t need, don’t want, and don’t think your children will want. Check out this Houzz story on decluttering tips and techniques.

A Wall of Memories

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Photo collage on wall
This wall of framed family photos at our lake house didn’t make the cut during downsizing.

While the PHOTOS themselves made the move from our lake house to Arlington and are in nice album that’s now on the shelf in my apartment, those frames had to go.

There was plenty of wall space in the guest room at the lake house for about 30 nostalgic family photos to be displayed. These black-and-white photos all had a story behind them (as all photos do, I guess!), and the frames and mats had all been selected to complement the old photos. Knowing that we were downsizing and selling most everything from not only the Atlanta house but also from the lake house – into what can only be described as a small apartment – was overwhelming and emotional, to say the least. It was heartbreaking. I knew I’d miss seeing the loving faces of these long-lost family members.

It wasn’t only THESE photo frames I had to get rid of. In the Atlanta and Hartwell Lake houses, there were a total of 164 photo frames. (You read that right, 164! Ridiculous!) On every shelf in every built-in bookcase, on every dresser and in every nook and cranny, I had the faces and experiences of my past to look at and enjoy. I loved being surrounded by these memories displayed in all these lovely frames!

But they weren’t going to fit into my new apartment. As I did with the wall of framed photos, I took all the photos out of the frames on tabletops and shelves and put them in a box for looking at when I need to see them. But what was I going to do with the frames? If they were no longer going to house my memories, I wanted to recoup some of the money I had spent acquiring them.

Fewer people are buying “cluttery” items these days.

I tried to sell the frames in one big lot on eBay. Not one bite. Then I broke them up into individual sets. Still nothing. The nicer ones, I tried to sell by themselves. I sold a couple of frames that cost $60 each and got $12 for the pair. (Ten cents on the dollar!) Of the dozens of frames that didn’t sell on eBay, I put some of the larger and a few of the more-expensive smaller frames at a consignment shop. Out of about 40 that I had there, I sold three. In eight months, just three! The rest I took to Goodwill and said, with a sigh, “Good-bye. Thanks for serving me well.”

What I learned through my downsizing process (and from observing dozens of other downsizing processes) is this: Many people are already bursting at the seams and they don’t want more stuff.

Saying good-bye to beloved items is hard. Like, gut-wrenchingly hard.

The point of this whole story is to convey this: I know that like me, you’re probably nostalgic about your things. You have a hard time thinking about parting with a lot of them. But it’s just stuff and a lot of it has no place in the fresh new life you’re planning. Take a lot of good photos of your most beloved items, then list them on eBay or use one of the many apps that help you sell your stuff. And if it doesn’t sell, take it to consignment stores, take it to the street, or take it to Goodwill. But don’t expect to make a lot of money from selling it.

I’ve been going to estate sales lately. (I had one for my mother’s estate and one of my own when we left Atlanta so am familiar with the process.) Fascinating to see what people collect – especially Washington, D.C. estate sales, because many people have traveled the world in one diplomatic position or another and collected scads of cool stuff. It’s fun to buy a couple of interesting, small items to give to others, or to decorate a nicely wrapped gift, or to wear with pride and say, “I bought this at an estate sale for five bucks.” Over and over, I’ve seen a whole life stacked in room after room, collected over a 40-year run in the house. A lot of items sell, especially those in fabulous homes that are being emptied after the death of a parent or after divorce. (Can you say “bargain”?) But in many instances, even in fabulous large estates, after the sale is over the house is still full of items that are ultimately given to charities or hauled to the dump.

Sell your good stuff as soon as you start thinking about downsizing.

The fabulous, large items you have (dining table that seats twelve, French mahogany armoire that belonged to your grandmother, eight-foot-high chest of drawers that belonged to your mother) should be listed for sale the minute you know you’re going to move. The longer you wait, the less likely the items will sell and the less they’ll bring. They’re not going to fit into your fresh new life. Your kids (especially Millennials) likely don’t want those big old items, and if you decide to put them in storage, you’ll spend thousands until you decide what to do with them.

Many people offer this advice to others about the downsizing process: “Downsize before you think you need to, because once you know you need to, it’s often too late.” Too late here can mean you miss your opportunity to move while you’re still young enough to enjoy a few stress-free years in a fresh, new life. It can also mean you’re older and maybe dealing with illness or injury, at which time your stuff ends up in an estate sale being sold for ten cents on the dollar and you end up in assisted living. Don’t hesitate. DownsizeToday!