Moving From a Large Home to a Small Apartment With Kids

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Sometimes, life catches us off guard. For instance, you may have experienced a season where you were living in a really big house and then, either due to a change in jobs or a need for relocation to another city, it has required that you either temporarily or permanently move into a small apartment. Plus, if you have children, it can make moving just that much more…strategic.

There are some things that you can do to make the process easier, though. Check these five recommendations out below:

Pick your apartment wisely. One great thing about having a home is that even if the house was noisy, it was noise that you and your kids (and no one else) created. When you’re in an apartment, though, you are also dealing with all of the “outside noises” from the people in the apartments around you. One way that you can avoid this is by getting an apartment on the top floor and at the end of the complex. They tend to be less of an audible distraction.

Be literal about your space. A large house means that you had a lot more room for a lot more things. You can actually make your apartment appear much smaller and more cluttered by trying to take everything from the house along with you. So, before you get to packing up boxes, take out some time to assess how much space you’re about to have so that you can be realistic about what needs to come along with you.

Storage? Yard Sale? Recycle? Throw Away? Once you have separated what you are taking from what you need to leave behind, you then need to decide what to do with all of those items. If you are temporarily going to be in a small apartment, then you might want to put a few things in storage. If you need some extra cash more than you need some of those things, you can easily earn a few dollars by holding a yard sale. No one really needs two refrigerators or five televisions, so why not have a few items recycled (such as donating them to a non-profit)? And as far as what you throw away, well, if it absolutely cannot be reused by someone else, toss it into the trash.

Embrace the benefits. Sometimes it simply helps to think about all of the “pros” that come with making this kind of a transition. Ones like you won’t have to mow the lawn, you may have a pool or be in a gated community and your kids may have access to neighbors that are close to their own age.

Get creative with your decorating. Whether you’re moving into some Berlin apartments or ones in Los Angeles or Raleigh, you are going to have to get innovative when it comes to your decorating. You might want to consider building a vertical bookshelf, or creating a “pots and pans island” to hang from your kitchen ceiling. Or how about getting some bunk beds for the kids? Initially, it may feel like you are simply “making the most of matters”, but if you start looking at home design blogs, you might find some inspiration to get excited about decorating your apartment. Plus, less space means spending less money. There’s a silver lining to every “cloud”.