Home Design Mistakes : Downsizing
The most common mistakes I see people make in their homes has to do with scale. I have seen countless clients downsizing and trying to bring their over-sized furniture with them, only to discover that none of it fits in their new home. When you downsize, you need to also downsize your furniture so that your space doesn't feel overwhelmed.
If you are considering downsizing make sure to measure your furniture and measure your new home before you start to move. There's nothing worse than carting an 11 foot sofa to your new home to find out it won't fit and it will have to sit outside until you can figure out what to do with it.
It might be worth the money to hire a designer to do this work for you as well. A designer should be able to measure your existing furniture and measure your new space and let you know what pieces you should take with you and what pieces you should sell or give away.
Another rule of thumb is to only bring quality furniture with you. That table from IKEA should not come with you, there's no sense in keeping low quality furniture like this in your new home. When you downsize and move into a smaller home, the small details like the quality of furniture will become more apparent in your new home since there will be much more valuable real estate in a smaller floor-plan.
ORGANIZE AND DECLUTTER YOUR HOME BEFORE YOU DOWNSIZE
UCLA once did a study on the affects of clutter in a room called “Life at home in the 21st century”, this study was based on a groundbreaking, four-year, ethnoarchaeological CELF study conducted in 2001-2005. What they found was that a staggering number of possessions and an array of spaces and furnishings that serve as the stage for multiple family activities can tell us a lot about who we are as a society.
The results were astonishing! The cluttered homes caused as much stress as postpartum depression based on their cortisol readings. Think about that for a moment…the clutter was literally causing depression. As the clutter begins to pile up, your stress levels raise as well. If you don’t do anything about the clutter, eventually you will have a mental break point. A point at which the stress becomes too much to bear, and you give into depression and loose all motivation to clean up the clutter that is causing your stress induced depression. Only furthering your depression deeper. It’s a loose-loose cycle.
So how do we stop this cycle? Read my book “How to organize and declutter your home” to learn all the steps you can take to creating a life of freedom from clutter and depression.
Does your house feel like cluttered chaos? Do you feel overwhelmed or chaostrophic in your own home? Getting your house organized can be overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you separate what you need in your home from what you want in your home? There are many steps to getting organized, but this e-book will guide you through the whole process one step at a time. You will work at your own pace, and accomplish one goal at a time, and before you know it, your entire home will be organized and clutter free! Each step is tried and tested, by me, to get your home organized and help keep it that way without making it feel like you are carrying the world on your shoulders while trying to juggle every aspect of your life all at the same time.
Your home reflects how you see yourself, and now is the time to let your brilliance shine! Now is not the time to let what other’s think get in your way, you are on a mission! A mission to show everyone (or perhaps just a disapproving mother-in-law) that you’ve got a beautiful home and you did it all by yourself (This e-book can be our little secret!). Maybe you just moved into a new place and need help organizing each room, or maybe you have been living in your house for years and are finally fed up with the dysfunction of your space- no matter your reason, I am glad you are here, and I want you to know that I can help.
Check out my guidebook How to Organize and Declutter Your Home
