Have you ever drastically downsized?

[Kitchenwitchery]

DH and I sold our 5 bedroom 3 sitting room 2000 square feet Victorian house and have bought an 800 square feet new build with 3 small bedrooms, one sitting room and a conservatory. We bought the new house because of the location but I'm a bit nervous that we'll be living on top of each other and feeling really cramped. Have you done this and how did it go?

The children are grown up and don't visit very often. DH is retiring and I mostly work from home. His hobby is writing so he's getting the tiny box room as his office. I'll work from the conservatory when it isn't too hot/cold, and we're saving to have the conservatory roof changed to one that will help regulate the temperature in there better. Otherwise I'll work from the guest bedroom. We're also decluttering and getting rid of excess clothes, books etc in preparation for the move.

I'd be interested to hear other's experiences, both good and bad please.

We did this two years ago. The decluttering after thirty years takes a long time, but is ultimately very liberating. We have moved to a more interesting area and have no regrets. For time alone, we have a small garden and a spare room, we have quickly adapted. You won't regret it!

Thank you @happystory that sounds really promising. I'm glad to hear it's worked out well for you but agreed the decluttering phase is not easy.

Hopeful bump

No experience yet but it’s a definite probability for us in the future and I have the same concerns/thoughts. The problem is if we don’t, all our money is tied up in this house (which we love) so we’re either looking at a future of watching our money carefully or one where we’re comfortable financially but will lose a lot of space. Originally we thought we’d go where we can get more for our money, but those days are gone in the areas we like. We’ve started on the decluttering slightly but it’s a huge task.

Best of luck with the decluttering and the move, would love to hear how you get on.

Something in 2019 made me panic about mortgage rates on our large house so we downsized to a 2 bed bungalow during Covid!

Best thing we ever did however I wouldn’t have purchased this bungalow if it didn’t have a converted garage into an office and a gym (two separate rooms)

I regret buying a plot with such a big garden though :/

It’s fun, even though we have a DC still living here we have enough space.

Two people in a 3 bedroom house with a conservatory? Yeah I'd say you'll be just fine. Even in a one bedroom flat you would cope I'm quite sure.

My parents haven’t done that move and still have a large Victorian house. They have talked about relocating and downsizing, and looking after the house garden is definitely quite a thing. However it has been really great as we have all started to have children as it’s a house we can easily stay in and in fact two or three of us with our children can comfortably stay at once. Two of my siblings live at a fair distance so often when they do visit it’s for a week or more and having the space makes that so much easier and more pleasant. My in-laws meanwhile downsized to a 3 bed and while we can stay there it does feel like we are on top of them (our children are 5 and 7 now) so we go much more rarely and often only stay a night or two.

of course we would have worked something out if my parents had downsized but to me it seemed like the house really came into its own since grandchildren have been in the mix.

I downsized when I divorced. I went from a suburban 5 bedroom, 2500 sqf house to a 2 bedroom apartment in a european capital city. I have so much time all of a sudden and much more money. I really don’t miss the big house at all.

Think in terms of what you want to take, instead of what you want to get rid of.

Think of it as a fresh start bringing only the essentials and some favourite heritage items.

DM did this but sadly did the opposite. Got rid of things one painful item at a time, finding a 'good home' for each before moving on to the next.

We did it when we left our rural business and went from a six bedroomed, three reception house with land to a two bedroomed, two reception town house, with a small yard.
It wasn't great, to be honest, but it was more about the change in fortunes than a life decision.
The DC were young and adaptable… I think we were, too.
We had to let some of our large furniture and rugs go, as well as all the usual rural clutter of tools, wellies, outside toys, etc.
Decades later, we seem to be back in a big rural house, with the same clutter.
I don't want to do that all again, even though I'm old.
It is nice to have space for the DC and DGC to stay.

We did it 2 years ago, my beautiful 6 bedroom house with living room/dinning/study/craft my biggest lost, the utility room, I didn’t realise how much I would miss it !

it was just the 2 of us and bad health meant a bungalow. 4 bed, two bathrooms (1 en-suite) supper large living room the reason we chose this one, conservatory and large kitchen / dinner. I have bed 3 as my craft room, and hubby has the double garage for his woodwork. It has a beautiful garden which makes it worth while. Trouble is our daughter has now moved home so bed 2 is now used but we still have a spare room so manage ok using that as spare room / office ( both retired but do charity work needing office space )

it was very difficult selecting what to bring and what to loose. I would suggest you go round with some stickers, red keep/blue would like/yellow go, you both do it !

you then measure and double measure to see what fits and adjust the red stickers.

the biggest best advice I can give, is hire a storage place, we had loads we weren’t sure about and some we really wanted but didn’t think would fit, all this went into storage. The first year felt we were forever switching about what was in store and what we had, but eventually I think we have it sorted though we’ve kept the storage unit as it’s easier to use than getting in and out the loft and well we still have stuff 🙄.

it is hard, very emotional letting things go, and yes being in a smaller property is difficult especially now with 3, but you adjust, just have somewhere which is your own space, mine is the craft room and his the garage but you get that even in a big house you need somewhere to hid.

Of course no-one has a crystal ball to see our future needs, for example accommodating family and grandchildren. But you'll still have a spare bedroom anyway, even if it is your office - you can put a sofa bed in it.

You've obviously thought your decision through carefully so I'm sure it will be fine. You also sound very organised in terms of decluttering, etc.

We made the 'big' move after we'd been retired for a couple of years, mainly to be near our daughter and grandchildren. We weren't exactly sure what we were looking for except to say definitely a much, much smaller garden (we had a very large garden with an orchard, stock fencing etc. which would have been a pain to look after as we got older). I still think of our current house in terms of a down-shift for that very reason - in the end we viewed two houses. One was a new build very similar size to yours - and one twenty years old but with more space and a small front and back garden which is not overlooked. In the end we went with the twenty year old house and it has worked for us. Yes, it has four beds, two reception etc. but all the space is used - i.e. one as a dressing room, one as a permanent bedroom for our grandchildren when they come to stay and one for my husband's hobby room. We de-cluttered for our move but still have a fair number of books including specialist ones and I have lots of clothes. I didn't want to cull either of these things too much.

Another factor was area and amenities - we are in a large village with bus route to nearest city, a shop, post office, two pubs and a fish and chip shop. Local doctor's surgery and community hospital only a couple of miles away. I think accessibility to those things is as important as the house, especially as you get older regarding not driving as much and being able to rely on public transport.

You sound a little unsure, OP, but I'm sure it will be fine as you sound very organised.

Thank you so much, everyone. It sounds like it's turned put to be a really positive thing for most who have done it, especially when it's completely by choice and there are only two or fewer people to accommodate. Unfortunately having lots of visiting family members won't be an issue for us.

I do think having my own space (once we get the conservatory roof changed) that isn't just a corner of the spare bedroom will help a lot. And the house is in a village walking distance into the nearby small city and there are lots of amenities on our door step. I'm glad people think the location is what's most important as that's what we've gone for, but I was second guessing myself. Anyway, I really appreciate the replies.

The number of rooms makes the new house sound much bigger than it is, I think. The rooms themselves are very small.

I've never had particularly big houses but I downsized from a large 3 bedroom house to a small 2 bedroom apartment and I'm now in a small 2 bedroom bungalow.

I've been trying to have less stuff for years because it makes me anxious and after clearing my DGM's massive house I knew I couldn't continue. I gave away alot of stuff. It's a process and it's about keeping what is important. For example I had lots of water glasses, wine glasses and mugs. I had alcohol I didn't like and lots of plant pots. The glasses went to charity, the alcohol someone else enjoyed at a party and lots of people enjoyed using the plant pots. I think of it as recycling. I didn't really have anything of value but you might and you could save it for your roof or a holiday or dinner!

I'm the happiest I've been in years in my bungalow. I've still got some stuff in the garage to get rid of.

Slightly different circumstances but was in a 3 bed, 3 bathrooms new build town house. Just me and my daughter and unexpected change of circumstances meant I had to sell up and move to a very small 2 up, 2 down terrace.
I absolutely love it, it's cozy and much less to clean!! Only thing I miss is having my own driveway as parking is a nightmare here.
Totally declutterred before moving and sold loads of big furniture.

Well there are four of us living in a 2 bed house which is about 650 square feet, with dh wfh permanently. So I'm 100% sure you'll cope with 2 of you with 800 square feet.

Love Mumsnet where people "downsize" to four bedroom houses

I agree with PP that temporary storage for "can't decide whether to keep" items is a good idea. Either you won't take things out for months which means you wont't need/want it, or you'll want to retrieve things. It means no hasty decisions you may regret. My other advice is vacuum pack absolutely everything you can! Bedding, spare pillows etc. I also have a winter/summer wardrobe where I vacuum pack winter clothes and coats in Summer, and get Summer clothes out like summer dresses (well, admittedly this year didn't quite go to plan ) Mine is also a problem of too many clothes/shoes as well as not enough storage if you have a loft you can board and use for storage that's also brilliant.

DH and I spent years living in bedsits/studio flats and always dreamt of retiring to a tiny house with a mezzanine platform for our bed, ideally in the countryside. Sadly it won't happen. I suspect we will end up in a sheltered living flat/bungalow, but our DC are also boomerang generation. I'd love to have DC to stay so will have to be creative with sofa beds/trundle etc.

Interestingly, one of my DC randomly asked the other day about a dolls house they had as children as they would like to give it to their DC if they ever have any! I was so pleased we had stored it in the loft with other sentimental stuff like favourite books, certain babygros etc. I've also had the conversation with them about any items we have now they would like to keep, and discussed division of jewellery etc. Sorry, that's a bit morbid, but I think it's important if people have older DC and plan to declutter (and on Mumsnet people have to "ruthlessly declutter" )

I’m in a two up two down terrace and showed around a downsizer when my house was for sale. She kept asking me where I put things, where the cupboard was for the vacuum, where the downstairs loo was, etc etc. It was clearly quite a reach for her that some people live in small houses with just one bathroom and very little storage space!

I love the vacuum packing idea, thank you. We have just had the loft boarded out so are planning to store winter clothes etc up there but now they’ll be vacuum packed before being stuffed through the hatch which will protect them as well as saving space. Just brilliant!

That sounds tough tbh. I do get what you’re saying about us having enough space and I know I should be grateful for what we have. It’s just a change and a small step into the unknown, that’s all.

We did this, moved from 5 bed, 3 bath and double garage to 3 bed semi with no garage. We moved for a better, less rural location and only once we were as sure as we could be that the children had moved out for good.

It's been absolutely the right decision for lots of reasons, but I do miss the sense of space and I'm not used to that 3 years on. Also our furniture is the wrong size for the house as the rooms are smaller. We've not replaced a lot of it, so we do find it looks a bit cluttered.

But that aside, it's been a great decision, allowed us to reduce the mortgage and we no longer have to drive to get to a shop or a pub.

Post divorce, I’ve found it quite liberating. Much easier to clean and less ‘stuff’ around.
Im finding that the older I get, the less ‘stuff’ I need.

I moved from a large listed house into a new build. Bills are cheaper, there’s almost no maintenance on the building, and I’m now warm in the winter.

Meanwhile, my ex took all his family furniture, ornaments, silver etc… more fool him!

My parents did when I was a child. We lived in a large old stone built farmhouse with high ceilings and huge rooms and moved to a 1970s semi when my df took retirement.

Our entire new house was the same square footage of a couple of rooms in the old one and we had to get new furniture . I thought the new house was tiny but I got used to it. Smaller houses are cheaper to heat. In our case , council tax was substantially cheaper.

We've downsized. Sold our house in May but are currently living with my parents whilst we wait for the sale to finally go through (hopefully next week).

We've gone from a large 4 bedroomed, 3 bathroom, 1 garage townhouse to a 3 bed semi with no drive or garage.

The reason was to pay off the mortgage so that I have the option to retire in the next 2 years or so because of health issues.

Since viewing the house again recently we've realised our sideboard, TV unit and coffee table are probably going to be too big for the living room. Until we actually move in though we won't know 100%.

I'm excited to have less cleaning and maintenance to do and anything will seem bigger than the small bedroom we're currently in.