Doing the house up, downsizing, old age prep

pollypenny

lessonlearned wrote: »

ScAndalously colourful sounds fab.........

Wardrobes - I have had several purges, some clothes I acftually now wish I had kept.......lol. I'm thinking In Particular of two fab-u-lous evening dresses......I won't make that mistake again.

When I do eventually move next year I shall have floor to ceiling fitted wardrobes in every bedroom - ALL TO MYSELF :rotfl:

I shall finally be able to become a fashionista;)

I shall dress in all colours of the rainbow - although maybe not all at once.........

Why not!

[Deleted User]

I am still in downsizing/making future life easier mode and have been spending to help future cooking. Just ordered a kenwood kcook after very much dithering. It started after a brand new morphy richards soupmaker knocked mains power out on first use, yes it will be returned and I will get the refund but then I started looking all over the net and have come back time and again to the kcook. I can keep it on the worktop and I will be able to hand on a few small appliances to daughters.

The very best price was john lewis and I downloaded the recipe app first and read a few recipes, I did research it thoroughly and liked what I saw and read. JL is £100 less (to jan 17) than anyone else, including lakeland and has a 2 year warranty rather than 1 year

So far so good with the downsizing etc. I pretty well finished a few weeks before christmas and am living comfortably with what I have, not regretting anything I gave away. I added several mix and match tops and bottoms to take my wardrobe up a grade and to include cruise wear, not been on one yet but sounds perfect for me, I am so ready for a holiday this spring, my first as a widowed single

Caroline_a

What a great thread! I've been doing stuff around the house this year as I've been undergoing cancer treatment and realised that I wasn't as able as I have been. As I have 2 dogs, I had both rear and front lawns put down to artificial grass. Looks fantastic, and so easy to care for! I've also now got hard floors throughout the downstairs which makes hoovering easier and cleaning, plus, again with the dogs, is more hygienic.

I've also been de-cluttering. Downstairs all done, bedrooms need doing but as daughter number 3 has left so much stuff, that won't be an easy task! Still, I can do all my stuff and then put hers in boxes for collection!

seven-day-weekend

We have downsized the house but upsized the garden, it is about four times as big as our previous one and we have a lawn to mow that we never had before.

We love it. It is big enough to have a formal garden area and a wildlife pond and also space at the bottom for my husband's three large sheds and my gazebo which I sit under to read in the garden. One shed is his art studio, one is his workshop and has all his power tools in it, and one is just for storage. We also have two woodsheds. This end of the garden is barked, so low maintenance

If it gets to the stage where we can't manange the garden, we'll have a gardener once a week.

As for the bungalow, the back and front door both have a step , but a ramp could be put in if it becomes necessary. The sockets were put quite high when we had it rewired, the electrician said it was EU regs.

We thought we would miss our house when we sold it; we'd been there nearly forty years, but we left it without a backward glance and haven't missed it at all.

We are quite clutter-free we are not the type of people to keep school reports and mother's day cards, and anyway don't have the space for it. I've never had a lot of crockery and pans, don't see the point.

Loanranger

I have just had an electrician install four new double sockets about four inches above from skirting board, usual level, and no mention made of EU regs.

SingleMaltWhisky

A very interesting thread to read through, it's reinforced some of the things I was thinking about and given me some new ideas to think about too.

I'd realised the basic stuff - making sure stairs to and from properties as well the internal ones could be adjusted for access, handrails in the bathroom, ability to switch a bath to a shower and chair if needed, ability to switch a downstairs room to a bedroom if needed, a low maintenance but bright and scented garden so my mother can potter in it safely, making sure there's no trip hazards - but I hadn't taken into account kitchen cupboards below waist height or sockets on the skirting boards and now I'm thinking about sliding cupboard doors rather than handles etc. We have also decluttered quite a bit in the process of her moving from her old house into the new place but we definitely have more to do... I swear she has a kitchen gadget for everything.

[Deleted User]

interesting post SMW. Just turned 60 is still young btw, I am 68 and am slowly altering or changing things for 20 years ahead. Yesterday I was whizzing up and down a long ladder, painting a lot of outdoor wood at the back of my house (eco) but with an eye to the fact that a decorator will have to do it in the future, however I have given the wood the best base possible

Yes the kitchen is something that will make life easier at whatever age and I so love my pull out deep drawers and oven at a waist height with another small one at eye height. Stairs need to be wide enough for `just in case`. showers are best as walk -in. New sockets at a higher level, I have one. If I ever change my bath then it will have a facility to ease getting in and out. The garden is easy to manage now, raised beds, pots and lots of different coloured gravels, something we both worked on achieving. I do have an allotment but it is half 8 x 4 raised beds and is easy to manage

I am still giving things away albeit more slowly. Latest was all matching crockery to a dd, who was utterly delighted and has thrown out her dozens of bits and pieces crockery. I try to pass things on and when I do buy new items, particularly furniture, then I do have an eye open to the future. My recliner has gone to a dd because tbh the arms were just too high, I am short and I was getting shoulder ache and could not knit in it, so new wider, more comfy recliner ordered but this time will be with 3 electric motors and can be used for sleeping and has auto rise, not needed now but ??? That chair is very future proofed

My bed was not future proofed enough but we bought them soon before my husband died. The mattress is far too heavy, even though luckily we bought two singles. It has to be flipped or turned every 3 months and I have to gear myself up to do it. Hypnos

Luckily any new furniture in the living room and snug, was bought as modular, light oiled oak and it is all mix and match and not too large eg the table is a twist around with a large piece that opens, so it can double in size but otherwise is a neat size. We did this after my husband had to do some work on a beautiful retirement place, all flats and we suddenly realised that these people were having to downsize from large houses to a couple of rooms. I sold my beautiful dark brown ercol when we moved. as it was big, cost £000s and I got £50. No-one wants it nowadays

SingleMaltWhisky

kittie wrote: »

interesting post SMW. Just turned 60 is still young btw, I am 68 and am slowly altering or changing things for 20 years ahead.

You definitely sound on top of things, Kittie, with your ladderwork! And apologies if it sounded like I am equating 60 with 'ancient', I'm really not. My mother's in good health, her mother is still alive and fit in her 90s and all my mother's (older) siblings are in good health too.

My concerns are more the other way - the easier I can make things for her in her sixties and seventies the more freedom and mobility she'll have for those really, really late years if she lives as long as the rest of her family. A few tweaks to a property now could make a huge difference long-term.

Furniture-wise I'm definitely thinking about a recliner for her in the future but they do seem to take up a lot of space. I really need to persuade her that the bed she has had her eye on - with heavy storage drawers beneath it - might not be a very good choice since she'll have to kneel to open them. I'm hoping I can persuade her to choose a more suitable bedframe and buy her a big wardrobe as a trade-off.

I am sorry to hear about your ercol by the way. I had thought we could sell my mother's set of dark wood display units from her old living room because they were so heavy I couldn't easy move them and we're going to be downsizing a bit. It was a similar story though, they cost a lot of money in the mid-1990s and were in almost new condition but no one I approached wanted them and there was no interest when I listed them so they went with the house in the sale for no extra in the price. The IKEA effect I guess? Decades of people living with pale woods and seeing them as 'the norm'...