Downsizing a big home is not for sissies

By Lynne Vance

How many towels do I use in a week? How many pots and pans do I really need?

I never had to ask these questions until I faced the daunting task of downsizing from my five-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot house to a 1,071-square-foot apartment.

The decision to downsize from the home I’d lived in for 57 years, where I’d raised my two children, was agonizing. But when an apartment became available that met all my requisites at my chosen relocation, Riderwood Village, an Erickson community in Silver Spring, Maryland, I snapped it up.

“You’re 82 years old and in relatively good health,” I told myself. “It’s now or never.”

With no idea how I would fit the con- tents of a nine-room, two-level house into four rooms, I panicked. Luckily, my good friend Gail had the answers.

She committed to working every day to help me downsize, and assured me that my seven-week move-in time frame was doable. Gail could be detached, objective and tough, yet compassionate when needed.

Also, Riderwood’s moving company offered a free consultation with its professional downsizer as part of my contract. As a first step, she advised going through the house to identify and label my “must have” furniture and other possessions with different colors of painter’s tape.

She then measured them and devised a floor plan for my new apartment. Once we had an idea of what would fit, we got to

work on discarding the rest.

First, I asked my kids what they wanted. “What on earth would I do with all that fancy china, crystal and silverware?” my daughter asked. “Half the time, I use paper plates and plastic utensils when I entertain.” My son’s only request: a brass eagle and some of his dad’s old tools.

That settled, Gail and I fell into a routine. She set the daily agenda with organizing skills that resembled those of a military officer preparing for battle. Everyone involved soon dubbed her “The Commander.”

As we marched on, slaying “the clutter enemy” surrounding us, she declared, “We have to be ruthless and take no prisoners.”

Keep, sell, donate or trash

We went through the house room by room, using the categories Keep, Sell, Donate and Trash (KSDT).

“When did you last use this? Why will you need it?” This was the test Gail and I applied to each item as we plowed through closets of outdated clothing, yards of unused fabric, stacks of vinyl records, and enough nail-filled baby food jars to reconstruct a city.

If I wavered the tiniest bit in deciding, Gail’s irrevocable verdict was, “You don’t need it.” And the object met its appropriate KSDT fate.

When, for instance, I removed a baking dish from a kitchen cabinet, Gail gave it the evil eye. “But that’s the lasagna dish I use for family holidays,” I said. “And,” she asked, “how many more of those will you host?”

Gail was at her ruthless best when it came to my many travel mementos. “You don’t need a hotel stub from the Greek islands to remind you of the place. You have those 20 boxes filled with photo albums when you want to revisit.”

With few exceptions, Gail outlawed sentimentality as a “keeper” reason. When I retrieved a stuffed puppy from underneath a crib mattress, I stroked it tenderly, telling her, “This was my son’s favorite sleepy-bye toy.” Gail patted my hand gently, took it from me, and agreed to create a Maybe keeper box.

On other occasions, when I expressed undue emotion over something like my sorority pledge paddle, she’d say, “Take a picture with your cell phone and it’s yours forever.”

Every night, overcome with a numbing weariness, I’d collapse in bed, asking myself, “Why didn’t I do this 10 years ago when I had more energy and less severe arthritis?”

See DOWNSIZING, page B-3