My wife and I had decided to downsize from our four-bedroom home in Ohio when I retired. By the time of the retirement party our house had been on the market for four weeks. The first wave of decluttering happened when the house was being staged for viewing. Rooms and counters and shelves were decluttered so they looked orderly and roomy.
This posting deals with the question “what are we going to do with all our stuff?“. My wife had been packing and labeling boxes for weeks. The things not used to stage the house had to be packed and moved. Adapting the four-box method of decluttering, we organized our stuff into these groupings:
- Things that were used every day – put away or packed and labeled
- Things that would need to be stored until we had a new place – these were labeled as “Storage”
- Things to be donated or sold
- Things to go in the trash/recycling
While the house was being shown, it needed to be in the declutter mode. The things in group 1 were put away when not in use. Floors and counters were cleaned all the time. This required some adjustment from my usual routine.
The group 2 items were stored temporarily in the basement and then transported to a storage unit in Tulsa.
We gave away and donated most of the items in group 3 through our local church that we were very active in. A bed, sofa and chairs were needed by the children’s pastor. A long dining room table and chairs went to a large family that the church was helping. A family in our home group took a recliner. We donated things to raise money for a church-sponsored summer camp for foster children. Church friends took a few other items. We didn’t have any relatives in Ohio so anything given to them had to be transported a long way. We gave many things to charities like Goodwill and Volunteers of America.
There are many options for selling your things: yard sales, estate sales, to friends, second-hand shops and antique shops for example. Our house sold in four weeks so we didn’t have a lot of time to move our items. An antique store told us they don’t buy china sets anymore because people don’t buy them. And we learned how large the gulf is between current value and retail price. There are on-line services such as Craigslist to sell your items but we didn’t use them.
Disposal of items in group 4 was more than just tossing unwanted stuff into the trash bin. We had accumulated a lot of letters and bills in 20 years that we didn’t want to leave on the curb. Months earlier we saw that a local credit union was offering free shredding. I took 10 boxes of old papers there one Saturday. If free shredding is not available, it’s worthwhile having a company shred your old documents.
The Ohio city where we lived collected old paint cans, sprays and oils every three months. I took 3 boxes of stuff on the collection day. We even disposed of old medicines through a collection drive by the local sheriff’s office.
When the house was sold, then everything remaining was organized by the same declutter rules above. These declutter rules were further applied to those things in storage.
Decluttering was an important part of our downsizing plan. Specific questions about downsizing can be asked of the Rentz Team’s downsizing specialists. Complete the form under Resources/Downsizing Guidance.