To Downsize or Not to Downsize?

Crash Course in Downsizing

If you’re an empty nester, have you considered taking the downsizing plunge? We recently ended up living a crash course on it!

We had approximately 30 days to get out of our long-time home.  Plus we had no plan for our next move.  During the second half of the 30-day period, we travelled to Dallas for our daughter’s graduation and to move both of our girls out of their college rooms, using up important packing and planning days.  Where to put their belongings was a question we needed to quickly answer.

How did we end up here?

For background as to how we got to this place… While I didn’t and don’t like COVID, I did treasure the quarantine time with my family.  It was unexpected and felt like a blessing to have us all in our home with fewer distractions than I could remember.  Even though school and business went on, no one had to physically be anywhere, which resulted in leisurely walks, talks, meals and happy hours.

Then at the end of Summer 2020, both of our girls left for school in Texas and the house felt even more quiet than we expected.  We knew we had too much space, but it’s hard to part with the house in which you  raised your family.  So many memories.  We knew that at some point we would think about trying to sell.  I reminded myself that home is where the heart is…

Housing Market Heats Up

Fast forward to the housing market soaring earlier this year, and we decided, “why not see what happens if we list the house?”  When it sold quickly in the spring, we didn’t have a plan.  We decided we didn’t want to buy a house in this crazy market, so we focused on renting.  What the heck?  We looked in Florida where we lived and there was little to no inventory in the rental space, and we also looked in Dallas, where there were many more options.  Our oldest was graduating from Southern Methodist University (SMU) and planned to stay in Dallas.  Our youngest would be starting her sophomore year at SMU in the fall. Also, my mom lives in Austin, which would be an easy three-hour drive. Sooooo, Dallas became the plan.

Great time to sell, but not to buy

Because we sold the house with most of the furnishings and we didn’t think we had that much stuff to worry about moving, we opted to move to a two-bedroom, high-rise apartment building in the middle of Dallas.  Let’s have an adventure, we thought!  We’ll be close to our girls and have a lifestyle we never planned on where we can walk to so many things… museums, parks, restaurants; how exciting!

Four months after the move and I feel like we’ve had a steep learning curve!  For starters, we fooled ourselves because we had, for lack of a more appropriate phrase, a shit-ton of stuff to move out of that house we had lived in for many years.  Even though I had said painful, emotional goodbyes to dear friends prior to those last few moments, I can honestly say that when we pulled out of the driveway for the last time, hours later than planned, I was so exhausted and stressed that I didn’t even get emotional.

Downsizing is not easy

Once we arrived in Dallas, we quickly realized what we thought would fit into our two-bedroom apartment, would not.  On top of that, within the first 48 hours there, our daughter who had just graduated from SMU received a job offer in New York, working for a fashion designer, which was her dream job.  We were so happy, proud and excited for her! And while I wouldn’t want it any other way for her, I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was, selfishly, a little sad that we wouldn’t all be in the same general area. We suddenly had to divide our attention and spent the next six weeks getting settled into our apartment and helping her find, furnish and get settled into a place in New York.

After helping with the New York move and what felt like a million trips to our storage facility, transporting items to and from, topped off with moving (yet again) our youngest daughter into her sorority house, we finally started to feel settled at the end of August.

Upon reflection, I’ve compiled a list of good, bad and ugly aspects of dramatically downsizing and moving to a new city:

The Good

• No maintenance; we submit a work order on an app and it’s fixed with 1/2 day;
• We can walk to so many places (parks, trails, museums, restaurants, grocery store, boutiques) and nothing is more than a short drive;
• Great views;
• Life feels much more simplified with so much less stuff;
• Cleaning is easy;
• Taking out trash is a breeze– toss down the chute a dozen steps away from our front door;
• Laundry is simple.  It’s right outside our bedroom door and doesn’t feel like such a project.  Throw it in… fold/hang and put away, all within a few steps;
• You quickly learn where everything is;
• You become creative with managing space;
• You know where everyone is at all times; and
• Storage is five minutes away; easily accessible.

The Bad

• We have three storage units even though we eliminated a ton of stuff;
• I share a closet with my husband that is much smaller than my prior closet;
• My husband is notified (via building app) of every delivery… “I have no idea what was just delivered… probably some little thing from Amazon.”
• Refrigerator/freezer space is like gold.  I’m putting celery in the wine fridge; and
• We aren’t particularly well-furnished… we consider this temporary and because of supply chain/raw material issues, lead times on ordering anything is crazy-long. We scoured places to find in-stock options and cobbled together the best we could!

The Ugly

• Little to no privacy, both inside and outside of the apartment; you can no longer step out the back door with your dog wearing your robe and slippers;
• Kids don’t have their own rooms/space when they come home; in fact they have to share a room;
• We’re very limited on guest space… great for short-term guests, but no ideal for any more than that;
• Holidays are going to be a challenge for oven space and where to seat everyone;
• Going to the storage facility is a nightmare… despite trying to be well-organized, the item we’re looking for is always in the last place we look, if we find it at all; and
• It’s tough on our boys (Moxie is a 14-year-old Havanese and Tiny is a two-year-old Siberian cat) because they can no longer hang out in the yard/screened in enclosure. Moxie can go out on the lanai, but because we’re on the 20th floor, it’s a no-go for Tiny so he doesn’t jump overboard.

Would we do it again?

Despite the good, the bad and the ugly, I’m still so happy we made the move.  I miss our Florida people, I miss the beach, but I also still miss Cincinnati and Cleveland.  I didn’t have dreams of leaving Ohio but I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to live in different parts of our country.  We downsized 85% and I’m not sure I would recommend that approach, but we mostly figured it out.  We don’t plan to live in a high rise apartment for long; we know we want to return to home-ownership at some point and definitely want our families and children (and hopefully grandchildren someday) to visit and be comfortable staying with us.

Who knows what is next for us, but I know we are enjoying learning about Dallas.  We haven’t bought cowboy hats, but never say never!

What are your downsizing stories???