Thanks to our downsizing BEFORE we moved, the recently-emptied moving van pulled away from our villa by mid-afternoon. Nothing to see here, folks, just a bunch of boxes and two exhausted renters. Truth be told, the place was a disaster! The kitchen was totally inaccessible and the TV sat, unplugged, on the living room floor. We should have gone out to eat, but didn’t want to abandon our dog, Kiki, after uprooting her from the only home she had ever known. We knew that setting up the villa would go so much more smoothly with only half of our possessions.
CCRC villas and apartments are smaller than you might like. Our villa is half the size of our previous home, though the kitchen (pictured at left) is comparable to our old one, and possibly even a little larger. Getting rid of half your possessions isn’t as hard as you might think. Decide what you want to take and auction off the rest! To accomplish this, draw a schematic of your new villa/apartment and lightly draw furniture in the rooms with a pencil. I used a software program to do this and got a computer virus for my troubles! When everything has been placed, you’ll quickly see what must be auctioned or sold. The money we made from the auction was used to buy new smaller pieces of furniture that were more appropriate for the villa.
