Downsizing your home? Here are four top tips to make it a smooth move.

As if moving house wasn’t stressful enough, downsizing your home is on another level. Making the change from a larger space to a smaller space is a big change and requires a lot of planning. What do you take? How do you know what to leave? What do you do with what’s left? All very tedious questions that we’re going to nail down in this article. If you’re thinking of downsizing and could use a hand, read on.

1 – Take inventory – establish essentials

Before you do anything. Before you begin moving in or even having an idea of where you’d like to move to, conduct an inventory. This should be a thorough list of all of your possessions. Whilst conducting this inventory begin categorizing each item into three separate lists; must haves, could live with outs and could be replaced.

The must-have items are those you can’t picture being without, and then there are those items you could be without, such as collectibles or old books. Now that’s not to say you should dispose of your entire collection of star wars figures as that would be disastrous. It should serve as a debating ground, perhaps those star war figures aren’t as important as those tools you may need in the future. Remember, you can always refer back to the list should you find yourself in a scenario where space is tight.

The ‘could be replaced’ list, should consist of items that are easily replaceable. They’re important, but not overly important that they have to be completely up to date or of the biggest size. Take a TV for example, although heavily used (depending on who owns it) it does not need to be the biggest asset to your home; you can make do with a smaller one.

Whilst you’re going through your items, try to be rational with your choices. Try asking questions such as, if I lost this in a fire would I need to replace it, or can I replace this with something smaller? This method is perfect for sifting through old Christmas decorations or broken furniture that you’ve hoarded over the years. Venture to your storage areas and remember, they were there for a reason because you didn’t need them.

Once you employ this method, you’ll begin to notice the endless scroll of belongings will shortly dwindle to a far more manageable pile.

2 – Parting with old friends

So, you’ve begun the painful process of clawing through tons of ‘stuff’ and have come across some possessions that seem too good to throw away. If you’re having trouble parting with that Harry Potter Box set, give it to somebody who will love it just as much as you did. A fast way to drop the connection is with a boot sale. Set up shop either in your front garden or a big community boot sale and shift your possessions in a jiffy. It may well be a heart-wrenching process but it’s got to be done.

As for those items you’ve dropped without losing sleep over, dispose of them correctly making use of any recycling options you have – be good to the environment and fellow humans!

3 – Draw a floor plan!

Now that you’ve taken an accurate inventory and have disposed of your unwanted belongings appropriately, it’s time to plan the move. You’ll want to draw a detailed floor plan of your new house. Ultimately you’ll want to make the move as swift as possible with minimum stress, so by taking into account the room sizes of your new home, you can plan ahead where to unload your bulky furniture beforehand, thus saving you precious time to spend on the little things that matter, like the colour scheme. This additional step gives you a brilliant idea of where to lay out your furniture, meaning you won’t be taking a trip to Ikea to replace any.

Additionally, you could also assess the additional storage spaces you’ll have to work with. Get an accurate assumption of what you’ll place where and try to fill all those free spaces.

4 – Coordinate your boxes by room

Spare your future self the extra hassle, make the move as easy as possible. We know how tempting it is to box everything up and be done with it, but believe me, you don’t want that in the long run. Moves are hard work, and once you’ve got every last one of your boxes housed all you want to do is relax. But how are you supposed to do that when you’ve got kitchen utensils paired with boxer shorts? Save yourself the added faff of walking to and from boxes trying to figure out where that toilet brush was packed in, and box your items according to each room, i.e. kitchen utensils for the kitchen box and boxer shorts for the wardrobe box.

Now our part’s done, it’s over to you!

No matter how you look at it, the daunting task of moving is going to be stressful, just do every little thing you can (or follow each tip) to chip away at that mountain of stress one bit at a time. If you’re prematurely here without a house to move to yet, here are some helpful tips on what to look for when viewing potential properties.

The key point to take away from this is that you are downsizing so you’ll have to make some sacrifices, just don’t get too carried away; we don’t want you losing sleep over those Star Wars figures.