Safe and Stress-Free Moving for Senior Citizens

Helping an elderly relative move can be a challenge. Often times an elderly person will accumulate an enormous amount of furniture, clothing and personal effects. When it comes time to move into a senior living facility or nursing home there just isn’t room for all that stuff. But it creates an enormous amount of emotional pain for senior citizen to give up personal possessions in order to move.

The first step in helping the senior citizen move is prioritizing what is coming along for the move and what is not. As the saying goes “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” and while you may not think there’s much value in moving a beat-up plaid recliner, but it might be one of your grandparents greatest treasures. Arguing doesn’t help. You need to help your parent see the value in scaling down and simplifying.

When I was helping my uncle move from his home of 35 years into a one-bedroom apartment, he was hell-bent on keeping every one of his possessions. It angered him when his well-meaning  daughter suggested that he hold the garage sale and “get rid of all that junk”. I realized it was going to take a little bit more finesse to get him to simplify and scale down the amount of things we were going to move.

Understand it may take some individuals longer to let go of unneeded possessions. I’m not talking about hoarders, I’m talking about your typical elderly man or woman who has a lot of memories invested in their possessions. To help my uncle, I started conversation about what was going to happen to all his stuff after he was gone. I casually brought up the story about what happened to grandma’s stuff after she died and how the people that never visited her were so fast to swoop down and take her furniture. He got mad just thinking about it, and he started talking about what he would have wanted.

When he thought about it, he realized that in much of the things that he loved and treasured would probably end up in a Goodwill store or a junk heap. So I suggested that he think about giving some of his prized possessions away to people that he cared about now. Wouldn’t he be happy to see a needy person gladly accepting that dinette set? What in his grandniece be thrilled if he gave her that grandfather clock?

After my uncle started to believe that this was his own idea he was quite enthusiastic about getting me to call a list of people and help him give away things that he really treasured. After the first family friend thanked him profusely for giving away a living room set to their newlywed son, he was hooked on the idea of giving everything away.

Moving day was a lot easier after he discarded the mountain full of items that he had no use for anymore. We gave away scores of old winter coats to the church. We donated couches and tables to the Salvation Army. He was delighted to gift his deceased wife’s jewelry to his daughters. He had peace of mind knowing that the things he had worked for and cherished were now in the hands of the people that he cared about.

To make moving simpler we made sure that all his boxes were kept to a manageable size and clearly labeled. We found out that the best way to box is possessions for moving was to think about where they would go in the new house apartment. The movers helped us get all the heavy furniture out, and we save a lot of money because there was so much less to move. Once my uncle got to his new apartment the movers put each box in the rooms where they belonged. Setting my uncle up in his new place was a snap.

Moving an elderly parent or grandparent isn’t easy but with the right attitude and approach it can be done. For more information on how you can keep your elderly loved ones safe and happy in their own homes, a senior safety advice visit ElderKind.com.

Moving? Make Sure Your Floor Plan is Right For Your New Home

Whether you are dealing with small house plans for a starter house or a vacation home, or plans for the huge mansion of your dreams, you need to work hand-in-hand with your architecture and design team to make sure you are getting the layout that is right for you and your family. Even if you are considering purchasing and moving into a home that has already been built, or a home in a large development where you have little control over the floor plans, it is important to make sure the floor plans of any house you are considering are right for you.

Plan For Your Current and Future Living Situation

When you look at the plans for your new home, the most important consideration is how the proposed or available layout matches your lifestyle. A retired couple with an empty nest and a young couple with one child on the way and two more planned have very different needs when it comes to housing. The retired couple may well want to run a business out of their home to provide extra income and keep themselves sharp and productive. A home suitable for such a couple may well feature one large bedroom for sleeping, a smaller guest bedroom or two for visiting children, and a very large room that they can use for their office and business storage space. It could also feature a large dining room and living room if the couple enjoys constant visits from children and grandchildren, or a smaller one if the couple’s family prefers to have its reunions elsewhere.

Certainly, the same layout would not suit a younger couple. The bedroom layout might be the same, but the two smaller bedrooms, or perhaps three, would be in constant use once the children have reached a certain age. A home office would not be as important to a younger couple, since chances are that both its members pursue careers that keep them out of the house during the day and wanting to spend time with each other and with their children as they grow. The space taken up by that hypothetical home office would best be split into a large playroom and a small storage room. That storage room would serve the family for years, as a repository for toys, schoolbooks and hobby supplies as the children grow. The playroom could also evolve into a game and computer room, and it should be insulated from sound in case any of the children decide to take up musical or otherwise raucous hobbies during their teenage years.

Regardless of particular needs, some other aspects of architectural planning with which buyers should especially concern themselves include storage space, windows, and bathrooms. A home can never have enough storage space, and nothing compares to the natural light streaming through large windows on a beautiful, sunny spring day. Bathrooms, even the most fashionably designed ones, are not meant to be near the kitchen, and the traditional first-floor laundry room may be inefficient for a young mother in a home where everyone sleeps and changes clothing upstairs.

Modern house plans allow for a great deal of flexibility and variety. Make sure your home, whether it is your first home or the home in which you plan to live your golden years, is laid out as you want it and as best fits your lifestyle.

Miguel Salcido is an avid blogger, father of 2, and recent proud homeowner. He loves studying architecture, home design and decor and plans to one day buy a custom house plan to build his dream home.

How to Move Quickly & Easily – A Concise Guide

Moving is rarely a joyous experience, and along with divorce is often quoted as the most stressful thing that we humans will ever do. However, it is obviously a necessary and unavoidable chore most of us have to go through multiple times in our lives, and there are some ways that you can prevent it from feeling like a nightmare.

You can make the moving process painless and more efficient, especially if you get rid of unwanted stuff before you start packing it all up. I learned the value of completing a well thought out move when I travelled a couple of states over to go attend law school in Boston last summer.

Based on my own experience, here are 4 tips for getting rid of your stuff before you move:

Clean Out Your Drawers

If you are anything like me, you probably use many of your house’s drawers to stuff items you really don’t want, but can’t be bothered to get rid of. Unfortunately, when you get ready to move you will find that all of the stuff stored within your drawers and cabinets can take up valuable space. In order to avoid transporting random and unwanted items, try cleaning out your drawers around a month or so in advance. Throw away or donate any items you no longer want or need.

Sell Your Stuff

Moving can actually be profitable, especially if you sell some of your unwanted stuff. After you have cleared out all of your unwanted goods, try selling them for some extra cash. You could go the online route such as via eBay or Craigslist, or you could hold your own old-fashioned garage sale. If you do decide to hold a garage sale, make sure you put lots of signs up a couple of days beforehand and advertise it on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter too. This way you can guarantee large crowds and lots of potential buyers.

Pack Effectively

When you decide to pack your stuff, make sure you have bought the correct packaging items and boxes so that you can pack your stuff as quickly and compactly as possible. Don’t let any useable space go to waste and pack everything as tightly as you can. You may want to set the ball rolling by beginning to pack several weeks in advance. This will allow you get rid of anything you don’t want to take with you with plenty of time to spare and in turn make room for the stuff you do want to keep.

Keep Your New Space in Mind

As you decide what you do and don’t want, keep in mind your new space. Is it bigger or smaller? Is the layout significantly different? Try and envision what your furniture and other personal items will look like in your new place. What might look great in your one bedroom apartment may look lost if you are upgrading and moving into your first house.

As you can see, moving house doesn’t have to be a traumatic experience. You can easily move quickly and virtually stress free if you just remember to plan for your move well in advance and get rid of any unnecessary items beforehand. Good luck!   

3 Tips On Handling Pet Stress When Moving

Moving to a new house can be stressful for both you and your pets but there are a lot of things you can do to reduce the amount of stress you will go through. First of all you have to make sure you have everything you need for your new home. This includes veterinary records, permits and registration for your pet. Some states are extremely restrictive so be sure to check beforehand.

Before you go pay a visit to the veterinarian for a checkup for your pets. Don’t forget to get the records so you can forward them to the new veterinarian.

While moving locally can still be annoying, it usually only requires a short drive across the state. Long distance moving, however, is a different matter. Still, daunting as this task may seem people do it all the time, and if they can do it, so can you.

Tip 1: You must know how you’re going to transport your pets

Plan your moves in advance. There are a couple of transportation methods you can use. You can either take your pet on a ride in your personal car, or you can opt to fly your pet.

Small animals can fly in the passenger cabin. Otherwise they’ll have to be transported by the air fright. Making your decision beforehand will reduce stress for both you and your pet since you don’t have to do any last minute changes.

Tip 2: Pack for your pet as well

Your animal will require food, water, toys and distractions wherever he goes. It’s a good idea to leave him a familiar T-shirt or blanket, so he will have an easier time relaxing.

Reducing your pet’s anxiety is, in fact, your top priority. If he gets scared, or anxious, he might lash out at people near him, and may even attack people in his panic.

Tip 3: Don’t expect fully accustomed pets immediately

Once you arrive at your new home, let your pets get a sniff of what’s around. This way they can get comfortable even though it’s a new environment for them. You can expect more difficulty adapting if you’re moving from an apartment to a house with a yard, and vice versa. For example, many apartment dogs suffer from separation anxiety so they may start reacting impulsively and pet cats tend to live indoors all their life so every outside experience is frightening and stressfull for them.

It’s also a good idea to keep ID tags or a microchip to ensure you can find your pets should they get lost. It’ll take some time for your pets to adjust to the new home, but don’t worry, they will be happy and cozy in their new place in no time.

Moving with your pets might seem daunting at first, but so long as you keep in mind the simple tips listed above you’ll find it’s much less stressful than you thought.