Downsizing a little and panicking there won’t be enough space

[newyorkparis]

Kids have flown the nest and DH and I feel our large 4 bed semi is just too big. There are some things about the layout of our house we don’t like, it’s getting on a bit now and the ‘quirks’ that we lived with whilst the children grew up are getting tiresome. One thing we don’t lack though is space.

We’d like a detached house, something a bit newer than we have where everything is neat and feels new. We’ve found a potential 3 bed detached which means we will pay only 10k less for it compared to us so by the time we factor in moving we won’t be any better off.

Pro’s are location, house only 20 years old, almost brand new kitchen and bathrooms, pretty garden, beautiful finish - it’s been really well looked after. A garage - we don’t have one at the moment but slight downside it’s an integral one which does obviously impact of the downstairs floor space. We’d rather not convert it as that’s what we did in our current house and we missed the storage.

Im wobbling over little things - mostly how to move down into something smaller. Cons for me are having to house a tumble dryer and chest freezer in the garage (only entrance is up and over door). No airing cupboard as it houses the hot water tank but we’d switch to a combi boiler so that could be remedied. It’s little things like not being able to leave an ironing board up in spare room (both spare rooms will be full of our drawers for clothes, also WFH desk and spare wardrobe for linen).

DH says we have way too much stuff anyway and we need to clear out. He’s probably correct but I’m worried that I’ll feel annoyed we’ve moved from a house where I needn’t think about where to store things and I’ll feel resentful that we moved.

So, where do you keep your ironing boards? Under the stairs? That is the only downstairs cupboard we will have.
Does anyone have an integral garage with the only entrance through the up and over door? How do you find that?

Tales of successful downsizing please! Especially if you still needed to occasionally host your kids and partners for the odd birthday or Christmas

Hi I’m in the same boat and experiencing similar worries etc

I am getting rid of stuff and having a good sort out. I’m not sure I can even fit my furniture in my new home but again it is detached which is what we want.

eventually we hope to do some extending and modernising

We too have tons of stuff.
linen - how much does one need? Two sets for each bed? Or just one set for the spare beds? The reality is that I launder our bedding and alternate between two sets yet I have more than that. The spare duvet that ‘might come in’. Has it? Will it?
likewise towels. Hundreds of towels. Only need two sets really per person.

i was looking at things like our avocado dishes yesterday - I mean, I use a couple of them now and again but if they weren’t there then a bowl would suffice.
do you have eleventy billion mugs. We do! I had a cull but I swear they multiplied secretly!

in our caravan we make do with the bare minimum and survive so really you can manage with very little.
my 90 year old mother has tons of stuff. We’ve been talking about having a cull but getting her to get rid of or even see that she no longer needs 10 pyrex bowls is very hard.
i know that it will take a good year to whittle down our stuff.

good luck but I do think your husband is right - we all have too much stuff but is he guilty of the ‘random bits of wood that might come in’ collection in the shed?

DH is right. You need to ruthlessly declutter.

I downsized from a large extended four bed with garage to a tiny one bedroom cottage. Getting rid of all the surplus shite was so freeing.

Edited to add re hosting, we all squeeze in and it’s fun, or we go out and socialise in restaurants and cafes.

I can't get past you l downsizing to a property where it's going to cost the same but make you life more inconvenient and it sounds like it will incur more costs, replacing a heating system from a tank to a combi is an expensive job. Are you sure this is the right house?

On a more practical note I have my iron and ironing board on one of these: https://www.dunelm.com/product/brabantia-ironing-board-hanger-and-iron-store-in-black-1000010236?defaultSkuId=30013360&branchCode=0735&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Utility_Washing+%26+Laundry-PMax_%5BGOO-LIA-HOMEHYGIENE-LAUNDRY%5D&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17885625296&gbraid=0AAAAADGqyX2jvCK5RZK2wYB8FRoU5rq6O&gclid=CjwKCAjwuO_QBhAWEiwAIkVhU4vbYUoIpeKp1--JD8F5-yzJ1JSzpzo28tPdjdzI_ot1ppyF72_mpxoCRJgQAvD_BwE

You can also get ironing boards which flip out of a drawer, although they aren't full size.

Declutter, it’ll save your kids having to do it later.

also can you put a door through to the garage and create a utility? From experience having the freezer and tumble dryer in a separate building was a right pain in the arse in winter.

You have less stuff or you just get used to mess. Will you have a loft? The loft of our terraced house is converted but we have a big area under the eaves where everything gets stored. We have drawers under the beds. The ironing board is between the wardrobe and the wall. We have a cordless hoover wedged behind the sofa. The mop is in the bunker outside the back door. We have two sets of bedding, and no avocado bowls! Mugs get decluttered regularly.

Storage wouldn’t be a problem if I lived here on my own but my boyfriend is a hoarder. He has a room where he’s allowed to hoard all his stuff and I avoid going into it, the rest of the house looks tidy and organised.

We are moving to somewhere with lots of outside space and storage potential. The people buying our house are downsizing. They are looking for something lower maintenance so they can spend more time together doing leisure activities, we are looking for something higher maintenance with lots of space so we can get away from each other. We’re all about the same age. They came around and measured up, and cheerfully announced nothing in their house would fit in ours, but they seem undeterred. It’s all about mindset!

I also feel the same about there not being any advantage to moving to a house that’s less convenient for no financial gain. DH prefers the location, he likes the idea of something smaller and neater. He thinks all the things I’m worried about are non issues and that the house is marketed as a ‘family home’ - if two of us can’t fit into that there’s something wrong.

I’ve recently downsized from a 5 bed to a 3 bed. There was a LOT of decluttering and it took maybe a year from deciding to finally commit to moving to actually getting the house on the market.

I still have too much stuff as I know I have held on to things for sentimental reasons, and will declutter further but I am allowing myself time to get used to the idea of letting things go. I have got better at detaching feelings from things, but also recognise that it is ok to keep things because they mean something to you, even if they aren’t useful.

I know what you mean about the luxury (convenience?) of things like leaving an ironing board up all the time but I have come to accept that I will have to do without them now. I think the thing is to make things as easily accessible as possible - you have to get creative with shelves, cupboards, drawers and hooks behind doors etc.

My new house has a large garage adjacent and although it has a side door I have had the up and over door replaced with side opening ones which are so much more convenient.

I should say their house they are selling, although a four bed detached, isn’t selling for much more than our two bed terrace as ours is in a much nicer area, so people do downsize to houses of similar value if it offers some advantages like location or amenities.

We’ve done it and the secret is ruthless decluttering. We had a four bed detached house and sold or got rid of, sofas, occasional tables, beds, etc. It’s amazing how much stuff you have that hasn’t seen the light of day for years. Bed linen and towels can go to charity, as can surplus crockery. We now have our bed and a spare bed. Both have storage and one is an ottoman bed.

You could put a remote for the garage door, which does make life easier. When the family come to stay, we have one spare room for the parents, one sleeps on an airbed downstairs and one on an airbed in the third bedroom, which is now a dressing room. They all use the main bathroom and we use the en-suite.

You could convert half the garage - so put a wall halfway across. Back half accessible from the house and front half storage accessed from an up and over door.

We downsized from a big 3 bed to a smaller 2 bed. We gained a detached garage and a converted loft room, both which give us extra storage.
The first thing we did when we put our house on the market is to get rid of anything we knew we wouldn’t need. All our clothes that we hadn’t worn for at least a year went to the charity shop, all excess furniture went, the things that had lived in the loft for years were skipped, so we probably got rid of 1/4 of our belongings. We left behind all the bedroom furniture as we knew we wouldn’t need different items (plus they likely wouldn’t get upstairs in our new home).
The difference is that we bought a house for much less that we sold our old one. This enabled us to upgrade the new house to future proof it. Eg new boiler, new kitchen, new roof, windows and fully decorated with new carpets / flooring throughout. This still left us with a decent amount to put into savings.
I have never missed all the clothes I got rid of - I now have one wardrobe and drawers and just don’t buy half as much ‘stuff’ as I used to.

Are you me?
We plan to make a laundry/drying/ / ironing space at one end of the garage and replace the up and over door with a door and window.

It definitely does sound like you have too much stuff. You don’t need an entire wardrobe for linen- we just have a storage box under each bed that contains the spare set of bedding plus a hand and bath towel so you can swap straight over when it’s time for their weekly change. If you need to house clothes across 3 rooms you definitely have too many. And why do 2 people need a chest freezer? Are you prepping for the apocalypse? That said the dryer in the garage would drive me bananas. It would be non negotiable to have it a) in the house and b) in the same location as the washing machine. Converting a portion but not all of the garage into a connected utility as @Thunderdcc describes is a good idea though.

We moved from a large 3 bedroom very cluttered house to a 1 bedroom small flat. I was absolutely ruthless clearing out and mentally it was hard, but it was the best thing i ever did. We have never been so happy, and our home has never been and stayed so tidy

Thank you OP 🙏, I need this thread. I am downsizing from a huge 4 bed with double garage and crammed loft, been here for decades, to a small 4 bed with a loft conversion = no storage, no garage and a courtyard garden.

My elderly dad had some wise words this week ..... all that stuff in your gagage doesn't owe you anything, selling things equals work and time. Giving things away is easier to do. That's what I am going to do. It is probably the garage and the loft that cause me the most stress tbh.

I'll have one reception room less in my new house so need to get rid of a whole big room of stuff, plus tons more. I think I need to offload two full/rammed garage size worth of 'stuff'.

I have a ironing board up in the spare bedroom. The garage situation would be an inconvenience too far for me. While my dryer is in the garage I can access from the utility room.

Equally as you get older would these inconveniences become a major issue?

We have just gone the other way from a smaller house to a larger one so I can share my best space saving tips.

Ottoman beds are great, you can store spare duvets / pillows underneath in vacuum bags.

Get the tallest fitted wardrobes you can to maximise storage. Or buy storage boxes to go on top for things like bags, hats, winter boots etc. Swap winter / summer clothes and coats and store in vacuum bags in the loft.

Trundle beds are great for a spare room which doubles up as another usage, they can become a double if needed.

Build a cupboard big enough to stack the tumble on top of the washer and have a pull put shelf halfway for a laundry basket.....maybe the old airing cupboard if you are getting rid of an immersion tank.

Think about getting rid of things like dvd's/ old books etc. We can't part with our vinyl or cd's but did bin boxes of dad's recently.

Think about things you could hire rather than keep if only used occasionally e.g. bikes, carpet cleaner, big power tools. Will the garden be smaller / less work? Can you reduce your garden tools or pay a Gardner instead?

Is there a way to alter the new kitchen to include a tall built in freezer rather than a garage chest freezer?

If a smaller house can you reduce the number of Christmas decorations?

We don’t even have a drier, let alone a dedicated laundry room. We have a dehumidifier we roll out from under the eaves for winter.

I think you need to flip this and think about the positives of living in that location.
How will your lifestyle improve?
What will it add to your life?
Does it have better transport links, easy to walk to things you like to do, local pub, shop and walks?
You need to move for the right reasons, not just downsizing your house.
You are right though a lot of houses don’t have much storage and it’s a pain.
As long as you can store your ironing board then I think it doesn’t matter that you can’t leave it up.
As other posters have suggested start declutterring now.
Things are likely to change again if your children buy their own houses, move away, have children. In ten years time it will be different again.
Re chest freezer, mine is in the garage with up and over door along with the washing line and other stuff so I tend to do in and out of freezer when I’m in there for another reason. I don’t find it hard.
Good luck, it’s a tricky decision!

We are doing this because the current house is taking too much time and money to maintain and we are getting too old for ladders and diy. Downsizing is sometimes expensive ironically.

A friend made a proper utility room out of part of their garage. Worked very well , they did it properly with decent insulation and ventilation, plenty of space for washer , dryer , spare freezer etc, they put up one of those Molly maid hangers from the roof. There was still plenty of room for other storage in the rest of the garage.

I’m doing it for nil monthly saving because I’d need to spend £60k on a new kitchen, bathroom and decorating to get the same finish in the house I’m buying and there is actually nothing to do at all in the new house.

I’ll be moving to a beautiful location too, convenient for both mine and DC’s commute. I expect to live there without having to do anything at all for ten years. By that time DCs will have flown and I’ll downsize to a flat and put some cash in the bank.

How much of the stuff in your house actually belongs to the kids? When my mother downsized, she asked all 4 of us to sort out the loft as a lot of it was ours. Admittedly some was stuff she had kept but I didn't want all my old school reports so out they went!