Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home

By Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand

Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home is an upbeat, hands-on guide that pulls together a wealth of practical information, sanity-saving tips, and heartwarming stories from people who have emptied out a family home packed full of "stuff." While aimed primarily at those dealing with a home that has been lived in for many years, it is valuable for anyone who is trying to stay on top of accumulating "too much stuff."

The authors, and the experts they interviewed, have helpful tips on how to care for, preserve, donate, or sell objects, as well as how to get rid of the things no one wants—in short, how to deal with everything from antiques and collectibles to old family photographs and letters, to the toxic waste under the kitchen sink.

What distinguishes this book from most books on decluttering is its emphasis on finding the perfect balance between "keeping" and "throwing," as well as on an ecologically responsible approach and one that recognizes the importance of historic preservation and family history. Professional organizers and senior move managers find it especially helpful for clients who have difficulty in getting rid of things.

Each chapter provides a checklist of "smart questions to ask" to help jump-start the process, foster communication, and ensure that nothing important is forgotten. The reference section directs readers to additional resources for information on how to sell, donate, or otherwise dispose of various items.

Anecdotes from people interviewed by the authors demonstrate that it's possible to get through this process with family relations intact, and that despite the inevitable tedium, there can also be surprising moments of satisfaction.

"The good news is that, while this is a big job, and it can be overwhelming…it can offer wonderful moments of nostalgia, new chances to heal old wounds, and great opportunities for family bonding," the authors conclude.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780991012213

Book preview

Moving On

A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home

How to get rid of the stuff, keep the memories, maintain the family peace, and get on with your life

Linda Hetzer & Janet Hulstrand

Illustrations by David McGrievey

COPYRIGHT

Text copyrights © 2004/2013 Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand

Illustrations copyright © 2004/2013 David McGrievey/Arts Counsel Inc.

Originally published in 2004 by

Stewart, Tabori & Chang

A Company of La Martinière Groupe

115 West 18th Street

New York, New York 10011

ISBN: 1-58479-323-6 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-9910122-1-3 (epub)

Disclaimer: The authors are not experts in the fields of law, finance, medicine, or family counseling. The information offered in this book does not lessen the need for, or take the place of, legal, financial, medical, or any other professional advice. The authors and the publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, by the information contained in this book.

To the memory of my parents,

Theodore J. and Ruth Johnson Hetzer,

who kept family treasures and shared the best stories.

To Michael,

who is essential to my story.

And to Emily and Elizabeth,

who keep me looking forward.

L.H.

To the memory of my parents,

Bert and Carolyn Powers Hulstrand,

who filled our home with many, many things,

but most of all with love.

To my sister, Elizabeth Hulstrand Sanchez,

who bore the brunt of the work cheerfully

and made the funniest comments along the way.

To the memory of my brother, John (Jake) Hulstrand,

who kept his sense of humor when many would not.

And to Steve, Phineas, and Sammy,

Just because.

J.H.

Preface

Our journey began when we shared our personal downsizing stories with each other, stories of helping our fathers empty our childhood homes—the houses they had lived in for many years—as they prepared for the next stage of their lives.

We were surprised at how powerful the emotions connected to family possessions could be and, at the same time, how easy it was to let go of many things.

We did feel a bit overwhelmed by the process of sorting through everything and were frustrated with what to do with all the things no one wanted. We talked to other people who had been in a similar place and realized we were far from alone in these feelings. We decided we wanted to share the information we had gathered with others who were going though the process of downsizing. The result, helped by the insight of our editor Marisa Bulzone, was our book Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home, published in 2004 by Stewart, Tabori and Chang.

As we promoted Moving On—being interviewed by the media, writing articles, and talking to people at bookstores and in a variety of other community settings—we were asked insightful questions, and were told many new downsizing stories. We saw how deeply this topic resonates with so many people, and how the creative solutions that people had come up with could help make the process less tedious and more gratifying.

Our path led us to new media and in 2010 we started a blog Downsizing The Home: Lessons Learned to share some of the practical strategies and helpful advice, as well as the poignant stories, we were continuing to gather.

Our blog has given us the chance to both deepen and broaden our focus, to include thoughts about recycling and upcycling, how to live with less—and happily so, and how to treasure what we have, without the need to always have more.

We decided to create this e-book as a way to share with even more people about the experience of downsizing, and to provide a convenient way for our readers to link to new and updated resources.

We’re happy to have you join us on our journey.

We’ve shared some of our own stories in this e-book, and we will continue to share them on our blog. We would love to hear your thoughts and stories, too, so please visit us here, and leave a comment. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter, and we hope you’ll follow us there. We would love to hear from you.

Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. First Things First

Planning Ahead, and Remembering Who’s in Charge

Preparing for the Day

Agreeing on a Family Plan

Dividing up the Belongings: A Few Right Ways

Ready, Set... Go!

Trash or Treasure?

Chapter 2. Sorting It Out

Getting Started

Considering Storage

Making It Work

Is There a Pack Rat in Your Closet?

Chapter 3. Saving Precious Memories

Preserving Family Heirlooms

Finding Archival Materials

Preserving the Memories Themselves

Digital Preservation: Saving Today’s Memories For Tomorrow

Chapter 4. Selling the Goods

Yard Sales

Estate Sales

Auctions

On-Line Auctions

Secondhand Retailers

Selling Direct

A Word About Collectibles

Chapter 5. Getting Rid of the Rest

Giving It Away to Friends or Family

Donating and Recycling

Throwing Out the Trash

It May Not Be Junk

Chapter 6: Lessons Learned

Take Your Time

Communicate

Enjoy the Process

Let Go

Throw As You Go

Think Ahead

One Final Word

And Another Thing...

Organizations: Professional, Trade, Consumer, Support Groups

Donation and Recycling Directory

A Checklist of Questions to Ask

Acknowledgments

Credits

About the Authors

Praise for Moving On

Others Writing About Downsizing

Introduction

Every child knows that it’s more fun taking toys out and playing with them than it is putting them away again when you’re done. And many older people (or their middle-aged children) are finding out that it’s much more fun building up a home and filling it with beautiful furnishings, wonderful objects, and meaningful memorabilia, than it is trying to figure out what to do with them all when the house has served its purpose and it’s time to move on.

When the time comes for you (or your parents) to leave behind your family home—whether it’s because of illness, death, or simply changing needs or preferences—it’s time to deal with all that accumulated stuff. But where do you put it all, and how? In what order do you work? And how can you do it in such a way that family harmony (if it exists) remains intact, and family dysfunction (if it doesn’t) is not exacerbated? So that everyone is able to move on to the next stage of life with some sense of positive resolution, with a good deal of poignancy, perhaps, but no bitterness.

We are two middle-aged daughters who have recently had the experience of helping our fathers move out of the houses they had occupied for several decades—the homes we grew up in—and into apartments. Because our fathers had continued to live in their homes for a number of years after our mothers had passed away, we were both able to separate the task of cleaning out the house from mourning the death of a parent. Even so, we both found that the job was a challenging one, both physically and emotionally.

There were many reasons for this. One was that both of us come from families of savers. Not only did our parents find it difficult to throw things out, but in both cases our homes had been the repositories for items that had belonged to our parents’ parents and grandparents, as well as aunts and uncles who had passed away earlier. Our parents’ homes were very full! So the task that fell to us (and the brothers and sisters who were working with us), of sorting and throwing things out, was time-consuming. It was also a bit problematic, because we knew that among the many things we needed to just get rid of, there were also a lot of meaningful family treasures we wanted to save, for ourselves and for our children. That meant looking at and making decisions about every single thing in those houses, drawer by drawer, and item by item. It was, in a word, overwhelming!

At the time, we both wished there had been a guide we could turn to that would give us some idea about the various options for dividing up the household objects, disposing of what no one wanted, and carefully saving family treasures. As we talked to others who were going through this process it became clear that for most people this is at best a complicated experience. We discovered that we were far from alone in feeling the need for practical information and advice, as well as the comfort gained in hearing other people’s stories.

In this book we have put together what we, and the people we talked to, learned in the process of emptying out our family’s homes. Along the way, we discovered a wonderful variety of creative, witty, sometimes ingenious solutions to some of the pitfalls families can easily fall into even when they enter this process with the best of intentions and are in general agreement over how to proceed.

The good news is that, while this is a big job and it can be overwhelming, with the right approach, enough time, and a little bit of luck, cleaning out the family home can also be a positive experience. It can offer wonderful moments of nostalgia, new chances to heal old wounds, and great opportunities for family bonding. We hope that the ideas, strategies, and insights we’ve collected in these pages will help you and your family use this time to find those moments and make the most of those opportunities.

That is why we wrote this book. We hope it will help you make this experience the best it can be.

Chapter 1

First Things First

When is it time to empty the house? There are really two answers to this question. The first answer is that it’s different for every family; it’s very hard to know when