Here’s an idea from one homeowner who’s just completed a complicated exit from a sizeable house to a smaller property. It’s a last-minute strategy that could be helpful for Mesa County readers who are planning a similar downsizing move.

Currently, the Boomer generation leads the pack of Mesa County downsizers who face similar associated challenges. They’re emotional as well as practical—and this idea could be helpful on both scores.

The challenge of downsizing comes with paring down all the sheer scale of household bric-a-brac that builds up over the course of daily living. Some of the stuff may be saleable, but especially lately, because downsizing is becoming so rampant, most is not. The old, non-electronic ingredient scale may be perfectly functional but is currently more likely to end up in a landfill instead of on anyone’s kitchen counter. Why it wasn’t disposed of when the spiffy newer gizmo took its place is just human nature—we hesitate to throw things out when they still work!

But for older Mesa County downsizers, there’s an emotional dimension to the process. When you’re wading through those boxes that haven’t been opened for ages to see if they’re of value, you find yourself with a dilemma. You can’t just toss all those cartons filled with envelopes jammed with pictures of bygone days—even when you know only a few are true gotta-save keepers. Every carton may have an irreplaceable family heirloom tucked in there alongside its eminently disposable cousin—but as a practical matter, when the moving van will soon be idling in the driveway, unless you are a hyper-organized person, the amount of time it would take to go through everything won’t be left.

The solution this householder found was to locate a storage facility halfway between the old home and the new. In their case, moving from a 6,000 square foot property to one half that size an hour’s drive away was aided greatly by temporarily renting a 10’x20’ unit. The space wound up being packed with assorted chests, cartons, pieces of luggage. There were even gardening tools that might or might not be useful in the new property—they would be stored until a few months of experience determined whether they’d be valuable or not.

Having this “halfway” solution can relieve a good deal of the deadline-induced stress that any move entails. Another stress reducer is being able to rely on an experienced real estate pro helping with all the other details of buying and selling any Mesa County property. We’ll be standing by to help!