In our Downsizing 101 series, we are moving on to the living room. This area of the home is less functional and more personal and cozy. Time to sort through and identify what you value having in your living room and what you can let go of.

OUR DOWNSIZING GROUND RULES:

#1 Think about the space that you are moving in to.

#2 You will need five designated spaces: keep, sell, donate, trash and RV. We will talk about how to deal with those piles in another post, so for now, focus on the task of sorting.

#3 In each room, we will start with the larger items and proceed to the smaller items.

#4 Look for multipurpose items. They will be a big asset in a smaller space or RV.

Living Room

Furniture – Thinking about the space you are moving in to will be your best guide here. If you plan to renovate an RV, then you may need some furniture to use. Otherwise, you are probably looking at a complete detachment from your current furniture.

Computer & tech gadgets – Which do you really need? Consider pairing down any that are redundant.

Work Office – If you have an actual small business, like Chris, then you will have to consider the equipment you need to make that work possible. For the smaller office materials, consider cutting them drastically. Multiple boxes of pens, or a notebook in every color will no longer work in a smaller space.

Home Office – Any materials and resources that you keep for your home office (tax information, critical documents, calendars, etc.) will all need to be addressed. The paperwork can be a real drudgery to go through, but keep the end in sight. One of the best helps for us in this area was to digitize a lot of the paperwork that we needed to keep but just did not have the space for.

Decor – You are not moving in to a prison cell, so yeah, you are going to want your personal touch on your new space, but keep it a light touch. Our advice for RVers is to consider leaving some room here for items you may want to purchase on the road. And remember, everything needs to be able to travel securely on the road. You do not want to add a lot of time to packing up and unpacking by keep a lot of loose items on display.