Over the years, My Divine Concierge has helped a lot of people downsize. We have helped them go through their possessions, pack their homes, and move everything to their new homes. Through this process we have discovered that people define comfort differently. What one person considers a comfortable home will not necessarily match what a family member or friend considers comfortable.
We have also discovered how beneficial it is to allow people to decide for themselves what makes for a comfortable home. Us trying to impose our preferences on clients just doesn’t work. By the way, it doesn’t work when family members do it either.
Few things are more stressful in a downsizing situation than adult children trying to force their perceptions of comfort on their downsizing parents. People are different. Adult children and their parents do not see things the same way. They don’t have the same goals, priorities, dreams, or problems.
What It Means to Be Comfortable
If you have plans to downsize, we want to encourage you to decide for yourself what would make your new home comfortable. Before you can do that however you have to determine what it means to be comfortable. This is something entirely separate.
Are you the type of person whose comfort relies more on your mental and emotional state than your physical surroundings? If so, a big part of your comfort might be safety. You might want to downsize to a new home in a gated community, for example.
On the other hand, you might give more priority to physical comfort. It might be very important for you to find a new house without any stairs to climb. You are in the market for a single level home with easy access from the outside – even if that means going smaller.
They Have Good Intentions
Even though downsizing homeowners should be allowed to define comfort for themselves, there is a time and place for family member input. Family members generally have good intentions despite sometimes disagreeing over comfort. Those good intentions deserve to be recognized.
Again, maybe you are planning to downsize in the near future. Rest assured your adult children will still worry about you. They will worry about whether or not you will be able to keep up your new place. They will be concerned about how you are going to manage your daily life. All of this is natural. It shows that they care.
The one thing downsizing homeowners should not do is dismiss the concerns of family members without consideration. Family members can offer a third-party perspective that is a bit more objective. There is great insight to that sort of input. Family members can often see things that downsizing homeowners cannot.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Wrapping all of this up is the idea of asking for help. While a homeowner might spend months figuring out how to make his/her new home a comfortable home, things can still get quite uncomfortable when moving day finally arrives. That is where we come in.
We can take some of the discomfort out of the moving process by handling the bulk of the work. We assist downsizing homeowners every step of the way. We help them go through all of their possessions to determine what stays and what goes. We pack up their houses, move everything, and then unpack and arrange on the other end.
If you are planning to downsize, remember that you are ultimately the one who decides what will make your new home comfortable. If we can help make the transition smoother, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to do whatever we can.