Downsizing: Tips on Purging, Organizing

When sharing our recent move into a loft condo, I promised I would offer my personal tips on downsizing in terms of purging and organizing. That's my topic today. Even if you aren't contemplating a downsize move, this strategy might help for any sort of necessary organization project, so you may want to bookmark or pin it for future reference. It's taken a while to just organize my thoughts and finish this post, and it's a bit lengthy, so you may want to even read it in sections (which I've separated for your convenience).

If you remember Steve Martin's movie, The Jerk, you can probably relate to this clip, "All I Need". It's a good parallel to downsizing.

My strategy before packing for our downsize was two-fold: a serious purge and organization of what remained, what I needed. We downsized more than 50% of our prior square footage. While some of these points may seem elementary, they're written for those who really don't know where to start. They do NOT include steps toward getting a house ready to list for sale; rather, they begin at the point where a house is either already on the market or sold.

Draft a Timeline, and Sequence Your Tasks

*  Once the house is available and ready for sale, wrap your mind around the possibility of going into contract right away and get busy right away. Time is of essence. Our house was never even on the market when it sold!

*  Negotiate the closing date and move out dates with your realtor(s).

*  Draft a timeline, blocking off certain tasks by certain dates to meet the schedule of closing and vacating your property. It may help to start by looking at your end date and work backwards. The point is, no matter how drawn out or compressed your schedule is, try to schedule and work toward key events with intention of reaching your goals!

*  Be prepared to either purchase boxes, bubble wrap, packing tape, and even plastic tubs for the downsizing effort. If you know of someone who is moving during your timeframe, by all means recycle from them or, if you buy, try to pass on to someone else who may be moving soon (ask family, friends, or post 'Free' on Craigslist or Facebook yard sale).

Moving Supplies

Get Inspired, Measure Twice, Purge Once (or Twice or Thrice!)

*  Your new space will undoubtedly inspire you (or else you need to question your decision to buy!). Before your new space is under contract, it's a good idea to visualize how you will use the space. Get busy in deciding what will go to the new space, what will need to be purged. Taking a careful look at the seller's furnishings is also good, as you may want to negotiate some of those items into your contract. This process may be fluid at first, but will soon take shape more definitively.

*  Style, structure of your new home can influence your choices. The age of our building (originally constructed in early 1900s) and modern design of the seller's renovation to the loft interior sparked a leaning toward straight lines and the Art Deco aesthetic, both representative of a modern look (but with vintage flair). I knew we had many furnishings that would already work in this style.

*  Size matters. Measuring all the wall spaces in your new space is crucial, and goes hand-in-hand with taking measurements of your current furnishings to see what and how pieces will physically fit. High ceilings or low ceilings can determine scale necessary to balance a space. High ceilings can accommodate larger furniture more easily, as an example. Try to roughly sketch it out so you can get a feel for the fit of things. I lost a lot of sleep going through this exercise repeatedly, juggling furnishings in my mind and on paper!

Size matters, functionality is important!

*  Functionality is important. In a downsize, it is critical to have things in their place and a place for the things you choose to take. This may sway your decisions in the pieces you decide to keep. The more versatile pieces can be, the more attractive they become in trying to make work for your new space. For example, a bookcase can be dish or linen storage, and a china cabinet can be linen storage. Or, a small stool can become table surface or even extra seating.

*  Color preferences can also steer your choice of furnishings. You may like the seller's color choices and it may steer you to want to change your furnishings, either with slipcovers, which room will hold which furniture, or by purging and buying replacements. Or, you may want to change wall colors in your new home to go with existing furnishings that you choose to take.

Before (top) and after (bottom) of Master BR painting

*  If money is no object and you have no reservations in purging what you already have, a new home may be your opportunity to just go with another style of furnishings completely, simply for the sake of change.

Basic Principles While Purging: Math, Matters, Motivation

You may be doing some purging of items in anticipation of your home selling and finding your new space, but once you have your new space under contract, it's time to get serious. A few things you may want to keep in the forefront of your mind when trying to make decisions in purging:
*  Do the math. Make an equation of the square footage of your new space to the old space. Ours was 2,275 new space to 5,000 former space, or 45% (2,275 / 5,000 = 45%). Translated to purging, I told myself for every 2 of most things, I needed to purge 1. For multiples, using 10 sets of dishes as one example, my goal was to purge 5.

*  Determine what's most important, what matters to you in a smaller space. Is it style, form/function, or beauty? Base your purging decisions on what is most important to you. Storage was important to me, and versatile functionality of pieces was equally important. Beauty sometimes took a backseat when an item was too big, or not in the style we anticipated using in the new space (our master bedroom furniture, though I loved its style and storage, was just too big for our new space, so we purged it).

*  Start purging with something that easily motivates you. It will spark your inner energy and, hopefully, keep you enthused. I started with my clothes and shoes first.

Easy targets for purge jumpstart: clothes and shoes

Okay, we've skimmed the surface, and you now have some basic things to concentrate on while purging. Let's dive deeper!

Purging, Organizing by Category vs by Room
A lot of professional organizers say the best way to pack and purge for a move is to go room by room, and that makes sense to me for kitchens and bathrooms. For most rooms, though, I have an alternate proposal: do it by category. Examples of this would be: clothes, paper, books, linens, games/toys, dishes (if you have a lot of sets like me), to name just a few. A few of my justifications for purging, organizing by category:

• Purging by category allows you to pick one that's easy for you to get started so you can see quick results and jumpstart your motivation to continue. My wardrobe was an easy starting point. I still had 20 yr old work clothes (that fit), and now was the time to bless others!
• Purging by category allows you to see the size of various collections. If you decorate with like kinds of one category of items (hello vintage purses, transferware dishes and pictures!), and they're scattered among various rooms, you'll soon see my point. It makes sense to gather them from ALL rooms before you begin the purge and organization. 
• Once you move, you may not choose to use all the same items from one dwelling's particular room to the next dwelling's same room, or you may repurpose a piece of furniture in an entirely different way in the same room.  Pictured below are various porcelains & other small decor items I gathered from various rooms and separated by take, purge, and store.

Purging by category: gathering small porcelains throughout the house first

Keep, Donate, Sell or Gift - the Actual Purge

You have decisions to make, and your timeframe may have an impact on what route you go.  Here are some options/venues for purging to consider (and I used all of them):
* Selling outright. My choice venue for this was in my established antique booth spaces. I limited selling only vintage or antique items, nothing contemporary. For more detail on that front, see this post. Consider selling contemporary items via Facebook yard sale, Craigslist, or local newspaper. If you have the luxury of time and good weather, have a yard sale. I chose not to waste my time schedule on selling through other venues besides my booth spaces. I have participated in yard sales, and that begs for another post of lessons learned. I'd be happy to oblige if anyone's interested in my tips for yard saling.

* Enlist family and friends for items you want to gift. My two married daughters and one niece were willing and anxious to take furnishings, and they coordinated a move to help each other and get it all out in one day. I also "strongly encouraged" my daughters to take some sentimental things such as their coming home outfits from birth and those outfits from their one-year old portraits.

Family truckloads day

*  Take family and/or friends up on offers to help you through the nitty gritty of purging, organizing, and packing. One of my sisters helped me continuously for nearly six weeks, two days a week, six hours each day. She helped me through indecisiveness on what to purge/keep (she would resort to the  "does it bring you joy?" question only as a tiebreaker), helped me drop off donations, and gladly took carloads of items each time she came to help. 🤣

*  Call a donation site to take items you want to purge that family & friends don't want. Additionally, each day I worked through boxes, bins, drawers and cabinets, I filled my SUV and dropped off a load to various donation locations.

Donation move day

*  Rent a storage unit to move things you really want to keep (after purging!) but won't have room to store in your new abode. It makes sense to organize and store seasonal decor such as Christmas and other seasonals this way, as they are not typically used year round.

Storage Unit Storage

*  Schedule and see the major move to your new home through. It's important to be there and note any mishaps right away. Additionally, if your move is to a reasonably close location, you can make many small moves yourself, accomplishing many smaller moves before, during, and after the moving company does their job. This also allows you to re-use tubs, boxes, paper and bubble wrap!

Professional move day

*  Engage a consignment business and/or an auction house to take what furnishings you don't want to move with you, but would like to sell. Bear in mind the percentage take for these businesses runs anywhere from 30-40% typically, and the most likely scenario is you receive your share of proceeds once the items are sold. Outright purchasing by an auction house is not typical. We scheduled this move after the major move to our new abode was complete. Alternatively, you could opt to have the sale hosted in your home (consignment). I chose not to go this route, mostly because our home was already sold. I did not want the risk of damaging the house interior or outside grounds with traffic of buyers coming and going. I've seen it too many times as an antique dealer who frequents those sales.

Chart Your Daily Progress

*  Keep notes on what you accomplish. In a downsizing effort, it's the ultimate reward for a list-making nerd to look back and see that proverbial list totally crossed off! It can be as simple as using a monthly planner and noting total hrs and subject worked on, or detailed descriptions.

Charting daily progress

*  Better than notes, take photos! I have a gazillion before photos of my house, garden and storage, but if you don't have those already, take photos of your rooms, even cabinets and drawers, before you start your project. Each time a move happens, big or small, take photos so you can see the progress. Sometimes it didn't feel like much of a difference for me, even when big loads were going out! However, I assure you, eventually you will see the huge difference in the befores and afters!

Empty House, Exterior after final move with auction house.

Take Breaks

Seeing your daily progress several days in a row allows you to take time off, guilt-free. It's a necessary thing to recharge your motivation for the duration of the project. Everyone is different, but when your bones and muscles ache, you're losing sleep at night, or feeling overwhelmed - those are all signs it's time to take a break. Dinner with friends, a night out with your partner, a day of reading, or doing nothing at all are all good suggestions to turn down the busy meter.

Dinner with Friends

A Night Out with My Honey

Accumulated Magazine Subscriptions through the Moving Project

Finish the Project, Celebrate!
Once the move is completed, it's important to finish the job entirely.
*  If you have a garden, consider digging up a few plants for transplanting at either your new home or a family member's (if you have little or no gardening space). Pass along plants can prove to be both sentimentally and agriculturally important. 

Pass Along Plants for Daughter

*  Do a final cleaning of the house and garage. Getting to the end point is cathartic! The trash was put out, and my sister & I celebrated! My husband and I also celebrated by going on vacation after the big move and the last load (with the exception of the auction house load out) was out of the house.

Celebrating the end of the project with my sister

Summary
Our downsizing effort took a full six months. Throughout all of this timeline, I was purging, organizing and packing daily. In an attempt to help those of you who may find yourself in a big move project scenario, I've outlined several points I went through to meet our timeline. Whether you're cleaning out an estate, downsizing your own home, or know someone else who is, I hope this has helped you. Looking back and summarizing, these are the key points I wanted to share with you:

• Draft a Timeline, and Sequence Your Tasks
• Get Inspired, Measure Twice, Purge Once (or Twice or Thrice!)
• Basic Principles While Purging: Math, Matters, Motivation
• Purging, Organizing by Category vs by Room
• Keep, Donate, Sell or Gift - the Actual Purge
• Chart Your Daily Progress
• Take Breaks
• Finish the Project, Celebrate!

Thanks for your readership, always. Feel free to leave your comments on this subject. They're certainly welcome.

(A special note of thanks to Marty of A Stroll Thru Life's 510th Inspire Me Tuesday for featuring this post and to the readers of Liberty's B4 and Afters and Shelley's Calypso in the Country's "Best of the Weekend" for showing most clicked interest in this post!)

Rita C. at Panoply

Sharing: Pieced Pastimes, Best of the Weekend, Love Your Creativity, BNOTP, Inspire Me, Make it Pretty, Celebrate Your Story,SYS, Delightsome Life H&G, TFT, Grace at Home, Vintage Charm