Downsizing from house to apartment?
 

Has anyone downsized from a house to a regular or senior living apartment? Did you regret it? Do you have space in new place to quilt/sew? We are considering it but would like to know what others have experienced.

I can only speak for my sister, who lives alone. She sold her home and bought a condo. She loves it. No shoveling, yard work or other outside maintenance etc. Her condo association does all that. She also doesn't have hobbies so she has plenty of room.
Downside is she loves to plant flowers and the rules are very strict.
I guess it really depends on your lifestyle and what is/is not important to you.
Wouldn't work for my husband and me but it's pretty much perfect for her.

My mother is in an assisted living one bedroom apartment. There is no extra room. There are two bedroom apartments available. Mom's is over $5,000 per month. I don't know what the cost would be for a two bedroom. She buys a meal package so doesn't have to cook unless she wants to. They have all sorts of activities going on each and every day. She especially loves the Bingo and the wonderful people who come in and do karaoke for everyone. She has made new friends.

Right now we love living where we are. Never know what the future may hold.

I just moved my mom into an assisted living apartment from a house. We downsized a lot to get things to fit in the apartment. She loves her little apartment and is happy there. If she wants to talk to people she can go into the common area or join in activities and if she wants to take a nap she can go into her apartment and shut the door. It is a huge relief to me knowing she is being taken care of and she is happy.

To down size...we made several trips to Goodwill with donations and a trip to the dump too. Mostly, my kids and I absorbed things into our homes. My youngest son is setting up an apartment of his own and took dishes and pans and some furniture. Mom's apartment is unfurnished and she was able take some furniture with her as well as some personal items with her. She also told me who she wanted to have what. That eliminated the fighting over who got what. It made everything as easy as it could be. Things are what you make of them and she made it easy by deciding herself where she wanted to live. It can be done.

We sold our home of 21 years & downsized to a motorhome! I learned to quilt in that & then we bought a 5th Wheel camper with 3 pull outs which is more like an apartment. I have plenty of room to quilt in here! I've made quilts up to King size here. I'm working on a queen sized quilt right now. It's not easy to do, but it's not that bad. I have a Gidget sewing table & a Brother NX-2000 sewing machine. When I'm quilting it faces the wall & I put a TV tray beside it to take any excess of the quilt & sitting in a dining room chair is the right height. If I need a bigger table, we bought a folding plastic table 6' long that we put up outside.

We downsized from a 3600 sq ft 1870s Victorian bed and breakfast to an 1800 sq ft condo - we love it! No yard work, snow shoveling, etc. Lots more time to sew! And we have an extra room for each of us for our hobbies. Those rooms are guest rooms, too, so need to be kept or made tidy occasionally, but not nearly as often as we used to have to keep them at the B&B. Downsizing did take some work, though. We sold a lot of the contents to the new owners, but had to give away things via freecycle, to the Salvation Army, and to our local Re-Store. All well worth it!

Hubby and I are turning our farm site with large farmhouse over to one of our kids. They need the space, we don't. We are moving into a 2 bedroom townhome in a town 3 miles away. Had a big auction 3 years ago to get rid of farm items plus I cleaned out my big attic at that time so that has helped in this downsizing. We are leaving some things for kids, selling or donating the rest of surplus. It's work, sometimes a little bittersweet, but also a good feeling getting rid of all the excess "stuff". We are looking forward to having just a 2 bedroom townhome and a small yard to take care of. Not as much room for quilting, but adequate. Sometimes it's what you make of it. Lots of luck to all of us who are downsizing or just moving on.

I downsized from a three bedroom, family room, full basement with a detached garage to a two bedroom condo with no basement. LOVE the feel of freedom from "stuff". It forced to me make those hard choices of what to keep an what to donate, give to family or simply trash. I started with books I went from 5 book shelving units to three. I eliminated one full bedroom of furniture. I got rid of all outside tools. (I do wish I had my small rake, shovel and show shovel for some small projects.) I shaved down the kitchen small appliances, extra vases, and cookie sheets/baking pans. Really who needs 7 pie plates and I am a pie maker, but 7?

My second bedroom is my sewing room. I rarely have guests so it works well for me. I did sort my stash and donated over time all fabric that I KNEW I would not use or of such poor quality that I was not a good choice for any quilt. I have a double wide closet in my second bedroom and it was FULL when I moved in, but with diligence in the past two years, I have slimmed that down to about 3/4 full. Goal: eliminate one tote of fabric per year. That is doable and will still keep me quilting for a long time to come.

In the end, I absolutely recommend the move and the paring down of possessions. I truly live with much more freedom. My goal for this year is to pare down the holiday decoration bins. I have 7 or 8 all stored on shelves in my garage but I need to sort, repack with more organization and donate what is not usable in my smaller living space.

Happy sorting, donating and .... moving!

We are in the process of doing this. It is HARD but so worth it. We had lived in our large home over 45 years and are moving into a very small 2 bedroom apt but we both love it. We are still getting rid of stuff. The apt is brand new so all new appliances and has no steps, a back door with a small patio and same at the front door. has my swing on the front patio (love my swing) still in middle of moving all my fabric and getting rid of some. the second bedroom will be my sewing room and we don't have much overnight guests so we are going to put in a futon. there is a large closet in there and will use it for fabric storage. We are so happy here with no responsibility of yard work, and if something goes wrong we just call the landlord. which by the way they are wonderful. we are in a senior living community and it is wonderful. Our kids were so happy we decided to do this and save them the problems later. For us it is wonderful and I would recommend it for anyone