Rightsizing Looks at How You Use Your Home

My friend Mo asked me to discuss RIGHTSIZING, a newly coined term, as it pertains to lived space, opposed to the horrific and overused term DOWNSIZING. We know in the tech world rightsizing is a buzz term that means adjusting the technology to the job and workforce. What does it mean to your living space?

I think of my childhood home in Deerfield, Illinois. I grew up with three siblings and parents in a 1,128 square foot home. Yet we thought of it as livable, with a big basement. Mom decorated with single or bunk beds, and simple furnishings. The Census Bureau began recording American square footage in 1973. They put the average American house in the 1970s at 1,660 square feet. In 2021 that grew to 2,687 square feet. That means we gained 1,000 square feet in forty-two years.

A bigger house was not just about status, it reflected security issues around a volatile economy. It also presented a good financial leverage tool in some cases. Now we have spaces we really don’t live in. Thirty percent of a home’s space is used ninety percent of the time: bedroom, family area, and kitchen.

Rightsizing refers to the act of rethinking the areas and those objects. Sometimes redesigning the spaces, rethinking the stuff, with the intent to utilize EACH room/space to its maximum capability. Confinement during the Pandemic focused my clients’ attentions on utility in the home because many folks opened a home office.

Function Important Part of Rightsizing

Downsizing comes with a “hard work” connotation, and a “deprivation” connotation, as folks think of giving up sentimental objects. But of course, not all objects have a symbolic connection. Rightsizing means the STUFF may not necessarily change, although it usually DOES. It means looking at how you USE your home. DO you use your house to work? As a launching pad to travel? As a container for your art? To socialize? To entertain family? Thinking about function is an important part of a plan to rightsize, making sure the space reflects your core values and goals. Downsizing is about clearing away, in rightsizing, it is re-working the SPACE where you do what you most often DO in your home.

For example, I returned from a visit to NYC to see my 90 plus year old mom, who I hadn’t seen in almost three years because of the pandemic. Before I left, I needed my closet contents to be easy to access, which they were not. I needed my house to be low maintenance, an ‘easy in easy out’ house, which it wasn’t.

More Examples From My House

For three years I have worked from my dining room table, as I gave up my rented office space due to COVID. My dining room modern hanging light fixture is always in the way of my head. My son’s family occasionally drops off my grandson with me, and I don’t have a spare bedroom; he sleeps on a cot in my bedroom, but I do have a room in my house that at present acts as a storage locker. Is that in alignment with my core values? No: that is the antithesis of rightsizing.

Experts like my friends Kelsey and Deb of SOS SB, who do “full service” relocation of seniors, say, “Do you NEED this?” not, “Do you WANT this?” When I collaborate with them, I see them getting rid of bags of clothes, books, kitchen gadgets, small decorative objects, extra linen, holiday stuff.

I tell my own clients to think of FIVE PILES in an effort to rightsize: DONATE, GIVE TO HEIRS, KEEP FOR SENTIMENT, PILE UP THOSE ITEMS THAT ARE VALUABLE AND WORTHY OF THE EFFORT OF SELLING (I can help there), and PILE UP THOSE OBJECTS THAT CAN BE REPURPOSED.

Two important rules I hear experts say that I do NOT follow myself:

1. If you bring something home, (for example, I always buy thrift store art), get rid of a piece. (This I cannot do….)
2. DO have ONE MONTH in a year that is YOUR ‘once a day’ month, so each day you get rid of something. (I do not do this either….)

More financially savvy clients tell me they figure out what their home costs them, and what storage costs them, and what maintenance costs them, and reality hits.

In short, rightsizing is about thinking about your space; if it can be reworked, or needs to be changed, and adjust your stuff accordingly. The flow and ease of the space is the key, as the space should reflect your goals, especially now, as we come out of the Pandemic. For what do you use your house?