Downsizing - The Bright Side

I just read Joni Webb’s third post on downsizing and moving from her home that she has blogged about for years. She sold to flippers and it is interesting to see how they remodeled it to sell.

It’s a poignant story and really fascinating to see the photos she shared of her home’s transformations through the years too.

It reminded me of all the downsizing I’m undergoing and have been dealing with for the last year or so, with more to come.

Downsizing for my mother-in-law

First, I helped my mother-in-law downsize from her home she had been in for 20 years into a small, one bedroom retirement home.

That took several months of clearing things out slowly and then getting the house ready to sell.

Simple vignette in the house, staged for sale.

My mother-in-law in her new retirement home apartment.

Downsizing for my mother

Then, I moved my mother into assisted living this past winter.

We still have her home sitting there, needing our attention. She still asks to go home constantly, sometimes packing up her things during the day.

Some days she doesn’t remember much and it has been hard to make the decisions. It’s difficult for my sister and I to close that door for her, to get that house ready to sell.

My mother in her beloved home.

We will likely deal with it more this summer, when we have some time.

We took her there last weekend, her first visit back to the house since she had bleeding in the brain due to a fall, and then emergency surgery on New Year’s Eve.

It was very sad for her, but we busied her with going through her closets to find spring and summer clothes. Then we sat down to go through a drawer of old photos.

It was so nice to spend time there doing that with her, my sister and my niece. I just hope she remembers it, she had some bad days after that with her memory, we never know.

That house is on the downsizing list to do later this year.

Downsizing My Office

For now, I’m in the throes of downsizing my office, which you may have read about in my post from a few weeks ago.

While downsizing can have it’s, well, down side…..it also has it’s up side.

This might not look like an up side to you, but to me, this looks amazing!!

My garage, cleaned out, ready to be remodeled for my studio

It’s the back section of my garage, a third bay that was originally laid out by the builder to be either part of the garage or part of the house.

It’s been the garage for almost 20 years now, full of my husband’s workshop-ish stuff and storage. A mess, really.

And yes, we had a few rats in there a couple of times. :-(

However, he finally got it cleaned out and we’re about to get started revamping it for my office.

We’ve got to add an AC/Heating unit, a wall with a door from the garage, redo the lighting, etc.

I’ll get the sheetrock repaired, textured and painted, a floor of some kind, some translucent window shades, and then all the shelving and samples will enter this space, after some more editing!

Designer sample room | Interior design studio

I’ve already had a few reps tell me they’d call on me here, I have a nice little pathway around the house to that back door.

No more driving 25 minutes each way to the office every day!

For now, I’m crowded into my home office with my essentials here and all my samples in storage.

I thought about putting this room in the One Room Challenge, but we’d never make it in 6 weeks.

My husband had planned to have it done in the first three months of this year. He was going to do it all for me. He retired in December, and pushed me to make this decision to move the office here.

Well, he goes back to work, part-time, at his old company next week, and the space is just now cleaned out so it can be remodeled!

Oh well, the hard part is done!

Trust me, while moving is physically hard (I’ve practically ruined my shoulder in the last year), the whole emotional part of it is a bigger deal.

Downsizing is not for the faint of heart.

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