Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Downsize, Don’t Expand
Maybe it’s a New York thing, but parents I know aren’t worrying about how they will fill their lives when their kids leave the nest. Instead, they’re plotting how they are going to reclaim valuable real estate by turning kids’ rooms into offices and dens and off-season clothing storage the minute that junior hits the road.
I’m not immune to this fantasy; in fact, I have it all the time: “If I move my office out of the living room and into the boy’s room, I could expand the kitchen and even build an island!” These are reasonable fantasies, not unachievable, and I have helped several clients make similar transitions, with lovely results. It’s easy to see how nice it would be, after the chaos of raising kids in a New York City apartment, to have some space to kick back.
If you really think about it, though, the smart thing would be to pare down and even downsize rather than expand. People tend to downsize when they are contemplating retirement communities, but why wait? “What’s wrong with having an extra room?” you might ask. The problem, in my experience, is that people’s things tend to expand to fill their space, so if a couple is living in an apartment they used to share with three kids, they are going to fill it up. That seems fine now, but in 20 or 30 years, they will be filling boxes with books for the Goodwill because they are moving from a three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom condo. At that point, they might wish they had let go of those books a decade or so back.
We all have different situations: You may want that extra room for kids to come back to visit (or, God forbid, move back in); others are disciplined enough not fill space just because it exists. Why move from a home that is paid for and has great memories? Still, I want to plant the thought that maybe, just maybe, a smaller nest will feel less empty.