I downsized a year and a half ago, moving from a house we bought when I was pregnant with child #1, and added a 2nd story to when I was pregnant with child #2. So the house was ALL about them, they were born and raised in it. Huge emotional attachment.
My mother – who moved about every 18 months due to my stepdad’s work – gave me one piece of advice: be ruthless.
I downsized by evaluating each piece of furniture: what does it mean to us, beyond its utilitarian value? If the item had no meaning, out it went. (Meaning it was donated.)
Same with books, although, as a voracious reader married to another voracious reader, we kept a lot. Bookcases don’t take up that much room, and add a lot of soul to the house.
Each kiddo was asked (with plenty of advance notice) to consider their stuff. Daughter, a packrat, wanted way more than my son. So going into the downsizing I knew I had to have storage for her things; she sleeps in the guest room/den when she visits, her stuff is mostly in the basement, packed up, but with easy access. She’s totally fine with that, when she visits, she retrieves whatever she wants for her apartment.
I was ruthless with things like bed linens and towels - they take up tons of storage room, and you only use one set at a time. No need to have lots of extras. I was also ruthless with kitchen stuff, keeping only the quality pots & pans.
I got rid of the everyday china we used (mostly low quality things from Target) and started using the much-better quality “special occasion” stuff. It makes me happy each time I set the table, getting rid of the cheap things freed up a ton of room.
I got rid of almost all the spices, and started replenishing when we moved into the new place: spices shouldn’t be held onto forever.
I was ruthless with my and DH’s clothes. I got rid of bags & bags of sweaters, dated blazers, pants that no longer fit and shoes I rarely wore. At times it alarmed me how much I was getting rid of. A year and a half later I can honestly say - I don’t miss a single thing! A few articles were replaced with new, more updated things: that was fun.
We have lots of art, much of it purchased while traveling. (Not ART, but framed posters, etc., in other words, nothing really valuable.) That was a bit harder to purge, and much of it is still in the basement: we simply don’t have as much wall room as we did before, and not all of it fits into the dimensions of the smaller house. One of these days I may hang it up… in the garage. No reason the garage can’t look artsy and cared for!
I started out my purging with my old basement, a huge repository of more junk than you can possibly imagine. That was a TON of work. I was so angry at myself for not getting rid of the stuff earlier, that by the time I started pruning in the rest of the house, saying goodbye to stuff became much, much easier.
In the end, the new house is lovely - filled only with things that have a true meaning and purpose. Moving in, unpacking, making the new space work for us - all of it was like a new beginning for this new phase in our lives.
So my advice is: be ruthless. You won’t regret it.
