Making a senior move to a place with better amenities, less maintenance, and fewer steps to climb involves a number of complicated tasks. But couples who have successfully navigated a move like that say that the very hardest job is the most mundane one — getting rid of the stuff they’re not taking along.
“Downsizing is horrible, but now we’re happy to be here,” says Roxann Headley, who with husband Doug pulled off a senior move this past summer from their large single-family home in Arapahoe County, into Wind Crest Senior Living in Highlands Ranch.
Units at Wind Crest’s attractive campus range from under a thousand sq. feet to almost 2,000 feet—but typical seniors will probably bring along less than half the possessions they had in their single-family home, says Blair Bryant with The Steller Group Senior Solutions, the real estate company that led the Headleys through their move.
“Sorting through all of the stuff is the logical place to begin a senior move, and the earlier you get started, the better,” says Bryant. He and other Steller agents have three free seminars on downsizing and other aspects of senior moves, coming up this month in Arvada, Centennial, and Lakewood.
The Headleys had lots to gain by moving from their house in Foxfield, a neighborhood of 2-plus-acre sites where Doug had been town mayor.
Coming into snow season, their home had a 250-foot driveway to plow, and a 2,000-sq.-foot walkout basement filled with a wide assortment of possessions they had amassed, including Doug’s tools, various collections, and stuff from their parents’ homes.
“We probably ended up moving just 15% of what we had, and the rest disappeared,” recalls Roxann, who was a practicing pediatrician until last year.
She notes that the couple ended up saying goodbye to more than might be expected. When you get a new place, she says, you’re likely to want to buy some new furniture.
But the payoff of the move is in the low maintenance and the amenities. “The sense of community, the people—that’s the most surprising element of being here,” Doug now says.
That includes meeting new friends like Jan and Maureen Sturgeon, who made the move into Wind Crest the same month, also with help from The Steller Group.
Like the Headleys, the Sturgeons are in good health (Jan, who was on Douglas County Search & Rescue, is climbing now with Wind Crest’s hiking club). Both chose to get involved with Steller early on, allowing time to plan and to make some minor upgrades recommended by Bryant before going to market.
Both couples saw their houses sell in a single weekend during August. Steller’s in-house contractors helped with de-cluttering, staging and carrying out the actual move.
Both couples have advice about the job of downsizing. “You find so much you don’t remember having,” says Jan. “Start early.”
“Be aggressive,” adds Roxann. “Don’t start with the photographs, the stuff that pulls at your heartstrings.” (They’ll prove to be too much of a time taker.)
And don’t count on your kids to take things. “Our treasures are not their treasures,” she adds.
Steller has free morning seminars on downsizing coming up, Nov. 14 in Arvada; Nov. 17 in Centennial; and Dec. 1 in Lakewood. See box above for a schedule or visit DenverSeniorSeminars.com
The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this post’s preparation.
