downsizing

Eat a toad daily for a good transition

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First of all relax…this is not toad-based dietary guidance. It’s 170 year old advice.

There’s a motivational adage that’s been kicking around since the 1850s that originated with French witticist Nicholas Chamfort:

“We should swallow a toad every morning, in order to fortify ourselves against the disgust of the rest of the day.”

Then there’s this from Emile Zola in 1896:

“Young man,” he says, in effect, to the candidate for laurels who seeks his advice, “one thing above all is essential to a literary career. It is not that you should learn your business, or that you should profit by the counsel of those who point out your shortcomings, or that you should cultivate the modesty of true genius, even if genius be lacking. It is that you should learn to swallow a live frog every morning before sitting down to your daily task. Take my experience.”

And its been attributed to Mark Twain in this version:

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

So what does all this eating of amphibians mean and how does it relate to downsizing? Allow me to throw around another analogy to explain that. We coach our clients to start the process of downsizing by handling the “low hanging fruit.” Every transition is a mix of hard and easy things to do. The tasks that are easy to get done are the best to start with. Early success builds up confidence, energy and momentum.

Eventually you have to address the harder tasks. Those are your toads. These are the tasks that you dread. If you stick with only handling the easy stuff, you’re going to be stuck with a whole lot of hard stuff at your transition gets closer. And make no mistake, a pile of hard stuff brings plenty of extra stress with it.

So as you work things through, start your day by eating one of your toads. A dreaded hard thing gets checked off first thing and that makes the rest of the tasks you do that day taste like dessert.

(Read about how the eat a toad quote evolved here.)

 

Our menu of services is getting bigger–introducing online estate sales

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Would you like an estate sale with your transition?

We do moves your way. Every project plan starts with our client choosing from our menu of services. Most downsizing clients ask us to pack and unpack; if we were a restaurant that would be our house special. Many like to have our coaching and hands-on help sorting. Others want our experienced eyes to help with home staging to get those million dollar photos for their real estate listing. And others ask us to ship goods to family and friends. We do all that and everything in between. But there’s one service nearly all our clients ask for: help finding homes for things they no longer need through sale and donation.

Over the past eight years, we have developed multiple selling channels. We get goods to the place where they will bring the best return for clients. We’re not appraisers, but our team members have many years of experience and knowledge of “stuff.” Our general knowledge combined with the expert knowledge of our selling partners adds value for our clients. We like to highlight the hidden gems that dazzled with sale results, but our real skill is in our ability to get all kinds of things to the right market and to find good places to donate the rest.

Since the beginning, we’ve worked with a combination of auction houses, consignment shops and dealers. They are still key for items that have high value and/or high desirability.  But over the past three years there has been an growing challenge: the number of baby boomers downsizing is growing exponentially. It’s wonderful that people are making changes to better fit their lifestyle now. But they all have furniture and goods they no longer need. The local resale and donation markets are full to the brim. Things we could consign easily five years ago, we have trouble donating now.

That’s why we launched our own e-commerce site and opened a b&m shop, Nextstage Vintage. We offer expanded selling services geared specifically towards on-trend vintage and niche technology equipment for our clients. NextStage Vintage now serves as the mothership for our larger network of online selling venues–we list items on as many as six additional online marketplaces such as Etsy, Ebay, Chairish and Apartment Therapy Marketplace and actively use social media to promote those items.

We have assiduously steered clear of running estate sales because selling goods is only one aspect giving clients great transitions. Estate sales require an entirely different business model that we’ve always felt would take away from what we do best…getting people from where they are now to where they want to be without the stress and the worry. And we have been able to do a good job getting goods with resale value sold via our trusted partners and our own selling site.

But with the amount of goods coming onto the resale market continuing to grow, we have been looking for another way to efficiently help our clients clear out and find value for their no longer needed things. And we’ve found it! We’re happy to announce that we’re expanding our menu of services to include online estate sales cataloged and managed by us and hosted on MaxSold.com. Online sales are a more efficient and less complicated estate sale model than the traditional ones, and they are a natural fit with our other services.

MaxSold has been an industry partner to the National Association of Senior Move Managers (NASMM) for a few years; our peers in parts of the country with fewer available selling venues heartily endorse their process and results. We like that they enable us to sell efficiently in a way that’s convenient for our clients.

Here’s how a NextStage-managed online estate sale works:

  • Items that are no longer needed but have resale value are offered for sale via an online listing with photographs and a description (similar but less detailed than the ones we prepare for items sold online). We can do this over time, as we sort with a client, or all at once, after a client has moved to their new home.
  • Once all the items are lotted and entered, MaxSold hosts and promotes the sale on their website. All bids start at $1. A sale lasts from 5-10 days, with bidding taking place over that time period.
  • After the sale closes, buyers are required to pay for their items online. No money changes hand onsite. Buyers then pick up their items at the selling location (or our office) during specified pickup windows.
  • MaxSold generates a check for the seller within 7 days of the close of the sale.

The simplicity of a MaxSold downsizing sale is what makes it appealing. It allows the market to determine the value of an item. No haggling, no negotiating, no cash on the pickup day. The pickup for the sale either at the client’s home or at our office. And best of all, it’s fast.

We will continue to send select items to our trusted local selling partners as we always have. But by adding the additional option of estate sales to our menu, we are able to offer faster and more complete selling services in a cost effective way.

We have one MaxSold auction currently running and we will be holding two more this month. Check our Facebook page for updates and to see these sales. Change can be good, and we’re excited to offer this new service on our menu to make us a bigger and better one stop shop for those making transitions and dispersing estates.

 

 

 

Opening drawers, opening memories

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memory box

“The hard part about going through all the boxes and drawers is that if I open the wrong one, I find that hours pass as I go through the contents.” Wise words from one of our clients who is sorting through decades of the ephemera of life in preparation for a move to an apartment after the unexpected passing of his wife a year ago.

In the course of living, we squirrel things away. We buy boxes of holiday cards on sale and stash them for the next year. We stockpile canning jars above and beyond our jar needs. We keep periodicals with articles we might want to refer to or get creatively inspired by. When you are thinning out in preparation for a move, those boxes are fast to sort. Keep, donate, recycle–not a lot of heavy thinking in boxes of the generic stuff of everyday life.

The boxes that take time are the ones that have memory-enriched not-generic stuff. It’s not boxes of stuff you can pre-identify as memory centric, like photographs. It’s boxes and drawers hiding things that catch you unaware because you had forgotten those things were there. Things that have accumulated over the years that have associations to people, places and adventures take extra time to work your way through and sometimes require a tissue or two too. Maps and brochures from trips, clothing left from teen years in an adult child’s bureau, handwritten notes from people long since passed away, yearbooks and programs from school plays…those are the things that take time.

As move managers, we frequently spend time with our clients going through those memory-enriched boxes and drawers. One member of our team spent a July afternoon hunched in an attic with a client going through a box of accumulated personal papers–among them the draft of an introduction from a luncheon where she introduced Eleanor Roosevelt. A hot humid attic is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for our team member, it was an afternoon of stories told by our client about her life that she will never forget.

The things you find rarely have historical or financial significance to anyone outside those who were involved. But they can be nice bits of anecdotal family history for future generations. Using your phone to snap a photo is the fastest, easiest and most convenient way to do that if the actual document isn’t worth keeping. (This means you need to organize your photos digitally, but that’s another blog post for another time.)

You may have goals for the number of boxes you want to sort through in a week, but don’t judge yourself harshly if you don’t meet that goal. If you find a particularly tough drawer or box of things, give yourself permission to skip it and come back to it later. Of course, our favorite solution to keep you moving forward is to work with a move manager. Sorting through decades of ephemera alone can be lonely, but doing it with someone else is usually a much more pleasant experience. Some of our clients tell us we make it fun…and we’ll second that because we truly enjoy that part of the job.

drawer memories

Lest you think that move managers have an easier time with drawers and boxes full of forgotten memories, I can testify that we can be as challenged by it as the next person.  I had to move a dresser, and took the opportunity to sort it out. 80% of the contents (hats, gloves, rain gear) was sorted quickly, but 20% made time stand still. Among the memories: a enlargement of my husband and son at an elementary school math night; our much missed canine’s bandana, winter collar and Halloween bow tie; a photo of a beloved friend who died of AIDS 24 years ago; half a bag of water balloons from when the kids were not yet grown up; and possibly the most emotional thing…the original pink drawer lining paper as folded by my mother at some point in the 1960s. Unexpected but welcome memories that took extra time and more tissues that I should probably admit to to handle. If only I knew a move manager…

 

3 downsizing case studies

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One of the best things about being a move manager is that no clients are the same. No two days are the same. There is no standard client, standard family or standard move. Such an abundance of variability sounds terrifying to some. But not to us. It’s part of what makes this such a great job.

We tailor our move management services to meet each client’s needs. We are part of our their “transition team,” working with them, their family, the realtor, the mover and the new community. Stress and worry about a transition have their roots in the things you don’t know. We work with our clients and the rest of their team to clear up those unknowns and make sure there’s a plan so that everything that happens is a step ahead, not backwards or sideways.

We do that with a blend of experience, a Rolodex full of other tested and trusted service partners, some sweat, and above all a good sense of humor. We have one other thing: we know that the move will end well, because we have eight years of good endings to look back on.

It’s hard to imagine how someone you don’t know can come in and help you make such a big life transition. That’s why the majority of our new clients come to us on the recommendation of others we have worked with–people who have worked with us can explain what we do and how we do it. But if you’re new to the idea of working with a move manager, here are descriptions of three moves that might share some similarity with your own planned transition.

Case Study 1: The Full Move

Client couple had been in their home 45 years and were moving from a 3 bedroom cape home to a one bedroom apartment in a community.

Constructed a move plan and timeline with the clients. 

Worked with clients and their realtor to stage home by packing items being taken with them and by sorting, packing and removing no longer needed items to be sold or donated.

After agreement for sale of home, worked with client to identify items being taken to the new apartment, being taken by family members, being left for the new owner—and by process of elimination the things that are no longer needed.

Packed items being moved.

Sorted and delivered items to be sold at consignment and/or auction.

Sorted and delivered items to be donated.

Arranged for the safe disposal of hazardous materials.

Arranged for disposal of refuse.

Coordinated with movers on move day to prioritize order of items being brought up to the apartment and to insure that furniture was positioned according to space plan (which was done with impeccable accuracy by the client)

Unpacked essential items as they were brought to apartment: kitchenware, linens, clothing, lamps, bathroom goods and anything else that could be placed quickly to eliminate the majority of boxes.

Stowed less urgent items like books and art for unpacking the next day.

Nested in: hung shower curtain, placed extension cords behind furniture, made bed and other things to make the first night comfortable.

Returned next day to complete unpacking, make adjustments to furniture placement and hang art.

Case Study 2: The Medium Move

Client had been in four bedroom multilevel house for 51 years and was moving to a two bedroom apartment condo.

Constructed a move plan and timeline with client.

Decorator drafted a floor plan with client.

Real estate agent handled staging.

Sorted and delivered or arranged for pickup of items to be sold at consignment and/or auction.

Sorted and delivered items to be donated.

Arranged for disposal of refuse.

Packed all small items, movers packed art and lamps to be moved.

Coordinated with movers on move day to prioritize order of items being brought up to the condo and to insure that furniture was positioned according to space plan.

Unpacked essentials.

Stowed non-essentials strategically.

Nested in.

Returned next day to finish unpacking and make adjustments.

Returned after sale of home to remove all items belonging to the client left for staging.

Case Study 3: The Essentials Only Move

Client had been in her two bedroom condo for 30 years and was moving to a one bedroom apartment in a community.

Constructed a move plan and timeline with client.

Drafted a floor plan for new apartment.

Real estate agent handled staging.

Client handled dispersal of no longer needed items.

Packed items being moved.

Coordinated with movers on move day to prioritize order of items being brought up to the apartment and to insure that furniture was positioned according to space plan.

Unpacked essentials.

Stowed non-essentials strategically.

Nested in: hung shower curtain, placed extension cords behind furniture, made bed and other things to make the first night comfortable.

Client and family finished unpacking.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

While none of these moves exactly describes your upcoming transition, you probably spotted some tasks in all of these moves that would help make your move faster and less stressful. As we said before, no two moves or clients are the same. But that’s not exactly true. There’s one thing that’s the same about all the moves we’ve ever worked on. Because our clients had a great move team that we were happy to be a part of, they all had moves that ended well.

Rethinking room use in new spaces

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Over the past century plus, the traditional American home floor plan with its dedicated rooms for specific purposes has reigned supreme. But in the past decade or so, it’s faced stiff competition in the home design popularity contest from open concept floor plans. Both have their virtues.

Traditional layouts started with the classic foursquare floor plan, four rooms laid out in a square on one floor, possibly with another room or two on a second floor. In older homes, there were doors on some of the rooms, giving homeowners the opportunity to use heat more efficiently by not heating non-essential rooms. In time, the footprint for traditional homes expanded, but the concept remained the same. Separate rooms for separate functions.

A downside to traditional layouts is that some rooms wind up underutilized. The dining room in particular might not see much use (or it might be co-opted for another purpose like spare craft room or laundry folding room).

On the other side of the space delineation equation, open floor plans have wide open spaces usually called great rooms—part kitchen, part dining room, part family room. Great rooms are gathering spots. They’re rooms that are always in use; rooms that become the center of the home.

Moving to a more compact living space can be daunting if you’ve lived all your life with a traditional floor plan. You’re used to watching TV in the family room and eating in the kitchen or dining room and using your computer in the study. It might feel like you are losing a lot of space by giving up your individual rooms.

But stop for a minute think about it: how many of the rooms in your house do you actively live in and use?  Half the rooms? All of the rooms? The extra space is nice to have when you need it, but how often do you actually need it?

If the answer is you have a few rooms you use a lot and a lot of rooms you rarely use, it might not be as hard as you think to adapt to a smaller space in your new apartment. You might be able to reconfigure and do as much in a smaller footprint. Try rethinking your floor plan. Instead of thinking of your new space from the perspective of  your traditional home, try thinking of your new space as an open concept great room. You’ve always had a dedicated space for entertaining, TV watching and using your computer—but couldn’t all those things also happen in the main living area?

It might be that making that kind of shift also means thinking of your furniture differently as well. Many people feel the need to bring a large couch with them because they’ve always had one. But in a new great room space where the dining table and chairs are there to provide additional seating when needed, a love seat or a pair of nice comfortable armchairs are more functional and versatile choices.

Sometimes it takes new furniture to make the new space work. You may not need end tables if you can find decorative two drawer file cabinets to store all your documents (if you have that many documents!). A big TV stand might be replaced by something with more function if you mount your TV on the wall. A little creative thinking can go a long way towards making your smaller new nest even more functional than your current space.

It’s easy to expand into larger spaces, but challenging to shift into smaller spaces. Rethinking your rooms might make you realize that you don’t actually need as much space as you imagine you do. You may realize that for your new apartment, less really can be more.

For more open floor plan inspiration, check out these floor plan ideas for smaller spaces from MyDomaine and this Design*Sponge article,

 

 

The Three-Year Rule

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It’s a simple rule: if you haven’t touched something in the past three years, you probably don’t need it. Applying the rule makes it easy to spot things you won’t miss once they’re gone, making the job of thinning out clutter easier.

Start where the pickings is likely to be ripe, in the deepest, darkest reaches of your kitchen cabinets. Is that an ice cream maker? And a crepe maker? Oh look, a fondue pot–where did that come from? Apply the rule: have you made ice cream, crepes or fondue in the last three years? If the answer is no, out they go.

Be brave and take on your wardrobe. There’s the paisley jacket that still has tags attached from a boutique that closed eons ago. You’ve never really been a paisley kind of person, but you thought maybe you could become one. You were wrong. Next to the jacket are the pants that don’t fit your thighs properly, the sweater that makes your neck itch and the handbag with a strap that bites into your shoulder, which is why none of them have left your closet in at least three years. Time for them to go.

Where next? The garage, the craft room, the linen closet, the basement—anywhere there’s clutter that bothers you. When you donate, hand down or sell your unwanted things, you win twice. Your have more space in your home for things you really use, and you’ve sent the unwanted things on to new owners who will enjoy them.

To spittoon or not to spittoon

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You don’t need a brass spittoon. It’s not valuable, it’s not attractive and you can’t even remember where it came from. There is no logical reason to keep it. But for as long as you’ve lived in your home, that spittoon has been sitting on the fireplace hearth. You can’t let it go.

So don’t. At least don’t right now.

When you’re making hundreds of keep, sell, or donate decisions, there are always things that linger until the end because you’re on the fence about keeping them. Designate a special place to gather those items. If it’s a reasonably collection, rather than force a choice that you might regret later, call a time out. Pack them up so you can make a decision when you’re under less pressure.

Photograph the items and label the box so you don’t forget they exist. When you have time and emotional distance from your transition or estate dispersal, unpack and spend some time with them. You may find that even though you no longer have a hearth, that spittoon is fabulous on your dresser filled with poppies and ferns. Or you may find that it isn’t important after all. What matters is that you gave yourself a chance to think about it.

Downsize, Divide and Concur

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If you’re moving to a smaller place, you know you won’t need all of the things in your current home.  Deciding what to bring and sharing what’s left with family and friends can be challenging.  Good communication and  advance planning can help make  that process easier.

Feather your new nest first. Determine what you’ll need at your new home. Make a list of the furniture, household necessities and decorative items that you like best, focusing on things that will provide the most comfort, function and style. Think creatively – an armoire can become a pantry or entertainment center; a kitchen table can be a desk; a trunk can be both an end table and extra storage.

Do the math. Once you have your top picks, it’s time to get out a measuring tape, graph paper and pencils. Work with a floor plan of your new home and the dimensions of your furniture pieces to create a proposed layout. Make the design process as concrete as possible, starting with a scale drawing of the rooms and scale representations of your furniture that can be moved around to try different arrangements. If possible, block out your proposed plan on the floor of your new home using blue painter’s tape. You might find that what looked like plenty of room between the couch and an armchair on a drawing is a tight fit in reality.

A place for everything. After deciding where to put your furniture, turn your attention to closets, kitchen cabinets and drawers, and furniture that provides storage space to determine what you will store where. Here again, be specific. Look at the list of kitchen items you’d like to bring and assign each to a cabinet or drawer. The more detailed and realistic you are in this step, the less likely it is that you’ll wind up either giving away something you wish you hadn’t or struggling to accommodate things you don’t really need or have room for.

Make your mark. Once you’ve finished your planning, mark the things that you’ll be taking with removable adhesive stickers in your favorite color. The stickers will help when it’s time to pack boxes as well as let others know that those items are going with you.

Family and friends come next. There likely will be things that you’d like to hand down to others. Perhaps you’ve already decided who will receive the fine china, the sterling flatware, the mantle clock and the bird’s-eye maple rocker. But, confirm that the recipient will truly appreciate your gift. Your son might have loved the sea as a child, but the schooner model might not fit in with his current passion for minimalist décor.

The most important heirlooms are often the ones rich in sentiment, not cash value. Does someone want the cookie jar more than anything else? Or the angel that tops the Christmas tree? Or the painting of the cabin in the woods? Here again, find out by asking. The answers may both surprise you and trigger some pleasant shared memories.

Set your own rules. There is no one best way to divide things among family members. Even the closest of families can find themselves disagreeing. You know your family dynamics – choose a strategy that will minimize friction, and make sure everyone understands the rules before you start. You might spend time with each child individually, and then make the decisions about who gets what yourself. Or perhaps you’d prefer for your children to negotiate with each other. For some families, it’s a priority to ensure that each sibling receives things of equal value; for others, it’s not. If the best way to maintain family harmony is to have the discussion facilitated by a neutral third party, don’t hesitate to bring one in. Also, consider hiring a professional appraiser if necessary.

Can everyone hear me? Communication is key to keeping discussions productive. Whether the dividing of possessions is taking place in person or over long distances, keep the process as transparent as possible. Make sure everyone involved knows the final outcome of these decisions. To avoid disputes later on, write them down and see to it that everyone involved gets a copy, as does the executor of your estate if you’ve chosen one.

Add background information. When it’s time to hand things down, it’s also the perfect time to provide a written history of special treasures, whether they’re high in monetary or sentimental value. Your notes don’t have to be long and formal; even a few words on an index card will be appreciated by future owners. Your Niagara Falls vase will mean even more to your daughter if she knows that you bought it on your honeymoon.

Making notes is particularly important when it comes to photographs. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing a parent smiling in a photo from long ago, but having absolutely no idea who they’re with and where they are. Filling in those information gaps can help preserve family memories.

Forward thinking. Take the opportunity to think ahead a generation. If you have grandchildren, chances are that sometime in the future they’ll have their first apartment. Imagine how much they’d enjoy receiving a box packed with a few essentials – a measuring cup, mugs, kitchen utensils, a pair of candlesticks, and, best of all, a note from you.

Outward bound. Now that the discussions and decisions have been completed, it’s time to get things out of your house so you can make forward progress toward your transition. Work with your family or hired helpers to pack stuff up and move it out on a timely basis.

You don’t have to go it alone. A senior move manager can assist you and your family in determining what to bring to your new home and facilitate the process of dividing up no-longer-needed possessions. Having someone who can help you share pictures of belongings with family members all over the country via a digital catalog, as well as with packing and shipping, can make downsizing less stressful and less time-consuming.