I began cleaning out, too, and it feels good. Secret dream is to find a shiny new condo somewhere with blue skies, moderate weather and an ocean view. Or move to Maine, which misses the weather bullet. Or move to DC, yeah. None of these will happen soon.
Main thing is, living lighter is a treat.
We take vacations. Sometimes we stay in condos or townhouses. I knew from vacationing in a condo or townhouse we could live nicely in a condo. (We actually bought a townhouse. No neighbors below or above us).
After we sold our house, we rented an apartment for several months. This just confirmed for me that we didn’t need a house.
dstark, from our travels, I too know we can survive in a 1000 sq. ft condo, as long as it has a large patio or lanai and a separate “suite” for kiddos. Mr. will not like to share his bathroom. 
@DocT, I read a lot of online reviews, and also managed to meet the previous tenants of my unit before signing the lease.
I live in a 2 bedroom 2 bath condo. I live very happily and peacefully. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Smaller home means less time cleaning and doing maintenance. Limited space means I don’t have lot of clutter and I check my closets and clean out as needed. My home is not stuffed to capacity but has an open feel. My kitchen is smaller so whatever I do have is used on a regular basis. It gives me a peace of mind. There is no stuff in closets that isn’t getting used. I feel safe and whatever the weather I just have to go to the garage underneath and get into my car. The convenience and location reduces the stress in my life. I find more free time to do the things I enjoy vs spending all my free time maintaining my home. The lower living expenses means more savings for nice experiences. Best decision ever.
I live in a 1000 square foot apartment and it has two full bathrooms. My guests have their own bedroom and bath.
Measure your furniture and the space where you think it belongs in the new place.
Cleaning out someone else’s decades of accumulated stuff is great inoculation against accumulating same for yourself. Though actually living in a house with storage can make one lazy – most of the clutter I have now is not because I think I want it but because the idea of going through it is less appealing than most other things I might want to do. For inspiration, read “It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff.”
^ I think that’s the reason a lot of people I know want to get rid of the stuff. So many in our generation have/will have to clean out all of the stuff accumulated by their own parents. I don’t want to do that to my kids.
The biggest issue is stuff in your basement, attic and garage. And if the furniture fits!
My biggest adjustment will be living w/o a garden. But I think it will be liberating and fun!!!
@soozievt, I never thought you would leave your place.
@dstark Yeah, significant life changes. I loved my 33 years in Vermont. I had to sell the place. I also didn’t really need it. I considered staying in VT but opted to move to Cambridge, MA, where I had lived in my college and grad school days. Unbeknownst to me at the time of my move two years ago, my older daughter landed in Cambridge nine months ago and lives just five blocks from me. That is a treat.
We are in the process right now, of downsizing our big house, remodeling it to get ready to sell, and figuring out where we want to go. We have not hired movers yet, so every weekend, I have been paying our yard guys to help us move furniture out so the painters can paint. So every weekend, I feel like we have lightened the load by a huge amount. We had a yard sale about a month ago, and we sold many large pieces of furniture. We started two months ago, have filled a 10 x 10 and have also now rented a 5 x 10 storage unit. I think it will take another month to complete.
I tell the kids - you should appreciate that we are doing this now so you don’t have to do it later. They just don’t see how this is such a big deal. Anyway, we are doing the right thing by downsizing.
I’m more anxious to downsize than DH is. We are beginning to declutter, but DH has a hard time getting rid of things. I’m sure we’ll have to do a second, and maybe, 3rd round of decluttering before all is said and done. We don’t have a specific date in mind, but I’d like to be out in a year. We also don’t know where we want to move to either (kind of a big part of the equation).
I used to think that I’d just want to own a smaller house when we downsize, but now I think I’d prefer to rent. I don’t want the maintenance, upkeep, headaches of home ownership.
I am reading this thread for inspiration. I am ready to downsize, but I want a 3 BR so I have a dedicated space for my quilting and fabric art. DH hates yard work, doesn’t do any of it, and doesn’t want to pay for it. I don’t have enough functioning body parts to do yard work except a couple of flower beds, and frankly, containers would be OK with me. S2 is living at home, which complicates things, though he helps with the heavy work. I do want him to launch, though!.
Buying a 3 BR condo near us would = what we could get for our house. We are not inclined to get anything more expensive than what we currently have. DH is also not interested in retiring any time soon (he’s 54 now, but plans to work forever), so the crazy real estate prices here weigh heavily.
My dream would be a 3 BR, 1550 sq ft, one-level cottage with a large front porch and 3 BR, with two of them MBRs – one for us, one for my sewing. And someone (even a HOA would be ok) who maintains a small yard.
In the meantime, I am decluttering. I want the cr*p outta here!
We radically downsized last September, staying in the same town, but moving to the beach. We went from a 2850 s.f. home with a 3 car garage and large (for SoCal) yard to a 1350 s.f. condo with underground parking and a small storage space. Initially, we paid for two additional offsite storage units filled with stuff I couldn’t bear to part with, but in December we cleaned out those units and ended up keeping very few of the items. Things that I really loved but that didn’t work in the new place I set aside and invited my girlfriends to take, so I can visit or borrow as needed. Pretty much everything else was donated to local charities. It has been an awesome move for us, freeing up time from household chores, and, even though the condo cost about the same as what our house sold for, it is much less expensive to maintain. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Good luck with your move!!
We have already donated 35-40 bags of clothing sheets towels, shoes, etc. I have Viet Nam Vets here at least once a week! The GREAT part of going through old stuff is what you find! I am VERY careful going through papers as I want to save the best of the Memorabilia.It is time consuming!
We moved from the Chicago suburbs to San Diego last year but only downsized a little (DH thinks it was a lot). He wanted to stay with a SFH with a yard so really we only lost about 350 sq ft of indoor space (although less rooms) and gained a lot of outdoor living and a much much bigger garage. DH is the one who has trouble letting go of stuff - his mom passed away a couple of years ago and he brought three SUV-loads worth of stuff back from the east coast including some furniture and many many boxes. (MIL was not quite a hoarder but did not throw things out.) This was knowing that we intended to move in the not-too-distant future. Most of those boxes moved unopened on to California. He had so much to go through that he was literally still packing boxes while the movers were loading the van. Which is how his travel suitcase accidentally got packed on the van so he had to buy some temporary clothes for the 10 days until it was delivered.
DS was also living with us until shortly before we moved so he and I were able to go through all his old stuff. We agreed on culling it down considerably but we are currently storing about a half dozen boxes of his stuff too, much of which was my choice to keep.
Then by the time my mom passed away right after we moved last summer, I was ready to streamline. My brother and I went through tons of her memorabilia from herself and Dad, and I was circumspect in how much to take. Brother kept a ton of boxes but he lived five minutes away. I know what’s most meaningful to me, and I know DS isn’t really interested in much if any of it. So that made it easier to make decisions. I do pity him when it becomes his turn to clean out our stuff because he’s a worrier and will think if we kept it, should he? If DH goes first it will become much easier because I’ll probably dispose of 90% of what he kept.
I felt completely at home in our new house even before we bought it. I took advantage of the move to rearrange where some of the infrequently things are stored. For example, I no longer have to sit on the floor to get out the good china; it’s now in a closet instead of the bottom of a cabinet. It’s easy to put things back where they were but really the move is a good time to make logical changes that should have been made ages ago.
I think moving from a stand alone home to a condo would be much harder than just having less space. I like the openness and privacy of the yard, and the freedom of just walking out the door to the car. DH likes taking care of a yard, and I do enjoy a bit of watering etc., especially without mosquitoes! I would also be annoyed by sharing walls with neighbors and the potential for disturbances. If we(meaning I) ever gave up the house for maintenance free living, I would go to a townhouse development rather than apartment style.
Marilyn :So that would mean a separate building? We have the third story with a Cathedral ceiling, so nobody abov!. I like the airy feeling there.