Downsizing: Where to Start

Downsizing: Where to Start

When it comes to downsizing an entire lifetime of items in your home, the task can feel very overwhelming. By breaking down the project into bite-sized tasks, downsizing will become much more manageable.

Be sure to ask (and answer!) a few important questions as you get started: Are you moving with young children? Are you moving nearby or across the country? Will you have overnight guests in your new home? Will you be working or retired when you downsize? Having clear goals in mind will make the entire process that much easier and will help to guide you as you decide what to keep and what to discard.

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Daring to Downsize: You can’t take it all with you!

Daring to Downsize: You can’t take it all with you!

The proof is in the numbers. Did you know that the average home contains 200,000 to 300,000 items? Shocking, I know. But just take a look around you. Your kitchen has plates, cups, eating utensils, serving dishes, cookware, small appliances and so much more. Your home office has all the paper files you’ve collected over the years. Closets are filled to the brim with clothes, shoes and accessories. And then there are toys, sports equipment, home improvement items, craft items, seasonal home décor and so much more. When you really think about it, 200,000 items in the home doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.

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Questions to Ask Yourself When Decluttering or Downsizing

Questions to Ask Yourself When Decluttering or Downsizing

Have you recently decided that it’s time to downsize or maybe just get your home in order? You are not alone! There comes a time when we realize we don’t need to be taking care of a large home when only two people live in it. And what happens with all our stuff? Over time, we all accumulate so many items…we buy new sneakers but hold onto the old ones. We purchase a black t-shirt only to discover we already have six others. We bought a new kitchen appliance that we don’t like but we hold onto it “just in case.”

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How to Host a Yard Sale

How to Host a Yard Sale

Spring is in the air, we’ve spent time decluttering, and now we must decide what to do with all of our unwanted items. Maybe during your decluttering process, you’ve sold a few items and donated others. But if your collection of unwanted items is large, trying to offload pieces one by one can be very time consuming. Enter the yard sale!

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How To Display and Store Sentimental Items

How To Display and Store Sentimental Items

There comes a time in each of our lives where we wake up and realize that our homes are full of stuff…unwanted items that have been passed down to us, given as gifts, once had sentimental value but no longer do. These items accumulate over time, usually because we are just too busy to set aside the time to go through the endless boxes to see what we’ve been saving all these years.

When you’re ready to declutter the items from the basement, garage, back of your closet and under your bed, no doubt you will enjoy the walk down memory lane for many items and wonder why you’ve been saving others. Then you’ll be ready to do the hard work. Decide what to save and what to let go of.

For the items that you want to save, it’s important to store and display them in a safe manner so they can be passed down to the next generation. Following is a list of our favorite items:

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Our Favorite Garage Organization Products

Our Favorite Garage Organization Products

Want to get your garage in tip-top shape? Having the right organizational products will help you reach your goal quickly and even better, you’ll be able to find what you need when you need it. Here are a few of Living. Simplified.’s favorite garage organization tools.

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One Client’s Journey to a Functional Garage

One Client’s Journey to a Functional Garage

From the time John and Jane* bought their suburban Boston home over 25 years ago, they never parked in their detached one-car garage. The garage stored toys for their kids, items for their business, tools and supplies for their lawn and gardens, and extra supplies for their home. So begins the story of why they hired Living. Simplified. to come in and help clear out their 142-year-old garage.

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How to Start Organizing Your Garage

How to Start Organizing Your Garage

When it comes to organizing our home, the area that is most often overlooked is the garage. If we’re being honest, it’s probably where all our junk goes after we complete a decluttering project inside our home. Did you know that an estimated 25% of homeowners do not store their cars in their garage? What?!?! Yes, it’s true. People have so much stuff that they often can’t park their cars in their garage! And what’s more, the garage often gets so full of items that the homeowners can’t even find (or remember!) what they have saved.

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