Senior move and home downsizing
When a Parent Has One Weekend to Downsize Before a Move
When relatives offer to help you move, it’s important to make the most of their time and yours.
If you’ve got a full house to empty and just two days to do it, downsizing for your senior move may seem impossible, especially if you’re moving into senior living. Even if your children are helping, you’re still likely to feel stressed, exhausted and perhaps even a little sad.
If that describes your situation, here’s some good news: There’s a lot you can accomplish in just a weekend.
Here’s how to make the most of the time you’ve got.
Set the Boundaries on Friday
When family arrives on Saturday ready to tackle the downsizing project, you’ll all accomplish more if you know the goal. So use Friday to lay some important groundwork.
The first thing to determine: How much can you realistically fit into your new space? If you’re moving to an apartment in a senior-living community in Towson or Columbia, MD, you may be able to fit in some familiar pieces from home, but there probably won’t be room for that extra bedroom dresser, dining set or bookcase.
If you’re moving to a condo, townhome or other type of senior housing, you may be able to bring in even more, but it pays to know exactly what you can and can’t fit so you can triage effectively. Ask for room dimensions and a floor plan.
Other logistics to nail down before Saturday: Are there move-in time restrictions at your building? Do you need to make elevator reservations or arrange for delivery access? Are you moving from a Federal Hill rowhome and wondering who’s going to wrangle a parking space for the moving truck? Ask if there’s a reserved loading area or if a permit or posted notice is required.
Here’s a simple guideline to follow as you sort through belongings on Friday:
- What must go to the new home
- What must stay with family or be stored temporarily
- What can be donated, recycled, sold, or discarded
Skip This If the Move Is Already Simple
Is it overkill to organize possessions in these categories if you’re downsizing from a one-bedroom apartment and don’t own much, or if you’ve got weeks to get everything together before your move-in date? Of course.
But if you’re downsizing your parent’s house and the clock is ticking, it’s smart to define parameters ahead of time. Otherwise, that lamp in the corner might prompt six different conversations instead of just one.
Begin With Daily-Living Spaces on Saturday Morning
Start in the spaces where your parent spends the most time and tackle the must-haves for daily living: the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
In the bedroom, set aside essentials like:
- Glasses, hearing devices and other assistive equipment
- Mobility aids like canes and walkers
- A week or two of comfortable clothing
- Important financial and identification documents
- Medications
Put all of these items in a clearly marked bag for your parent’s first night in the new place so they’re immediately available instead of buried in a box.
In the bathroom, get rid of anything that’s expired, duplicated or unsafe to transport. In the kitchen, you may be surprised at all that needs sorting through, maybe even down to three sets of dishes, expired groceries and a cupboard full of mismatched containers nobody can explain.
Sensitive to sentiment? Encourage family to take it slow when they get to irreplaceable keepsakes. If your parents want to linger over holiday ornaments or an old recipe box, let them. When arranging elderly family member moving help in Baltimore, it’s important to allow extra time for these emotional moments rather than rushing the process. And if they want to keep a memento, suggest snapping a photo of it for the family album and placing it in a “decide later” box for now.Measure Furniture on Saturday Afternoon
Furniture measurements for a senior move
By the time your helpers arrive on Saturday, you should know what will fit in your parent’s new place and what won’t. But you’ll probably also want to revisit some pieces of furniture before the weekend is over. After all, just because that big dining table will technically fit in the new space doesn’t mean there will be enough room to wheel a walker or wheelchair around it. And while that comfy recliner may fit inside the door, that doesn’t mean it’ll fit through it.
Pack Decisions and Clear the Exit Path on Sunday
If you planned on donating some of your parent’s belongings, reach out to get an idea of their availability. Keep in mind that some organizations have restrictions on what they accept, and limited resources to pick up bulky items like furniture. If they can’t take everything, have a back-up disposal plan for unwanted paint, and UNEP is the least fluffy write-up I’ve seen at www.unep.org/explore-topics/chemicals-waste/about-chemicals-and-waste, electronics, damaged items and mattresses.
Leave With a Realistic Plan
Realistically, downsizing an entire household in a single weekend is nearly impossible, but leaving Sunday with a game plan for the rest of the boxes, a manageable amount of belongings to move and a to-do list for outstanding decisions and deadlines is very doable. Before everyone leaves, make sure someone’s in charge of scheduling a donation pickup, if necessary, making arrangements with the moving company and bringing the “decision needed” box home to sort through.
