Downsizing + Mementos: How to Take Memories With You Without The Clutter

In my work as a REALTOR®, families all around the Nashville area have realized it’s time to downsize. Whether a family has changed seasons and their house doesn’t fit them anymore, or rising property values make it a perfect time to cash in on a great investment, moving means dealing with all the collected mementos.

How do we deal with all the memorabilia, gifts, and mementos we’ve gathered over the years?

Take a Picture, it Lasts Longer

Recently someone introduced me to the idea of taking a photograph of physical items, and letting the objects themselves go. Maybe it was from the book called Love People, Use Things by those guys who call themselves “The Minimalists.” Or from some podcast or wise friend. But taking a picture has done three things that the physical item didn’t:

1. The picture can be displayed more easily than the item.
2. I can use the picture to tell a more complete story.
3. Pictures can be stored and shared with ease and space economy.

I recently encountered some family mementos that I had seen before but didn’t know the significance of. Because the items themselves were bulky, they had to be stored in a box with dozens of other meaningful memories, but on encountering their story, I snapped a cute picture of them, and brought them into a scrapbooking project.

Tell More of the Story

Now those pictures have their stories re-attached, and are mingled in with other similar stories in a scrapbook I can browse on a rainy day, or share with loved ones when they visit. At family reunions I would be able to grab photos for a slide show off the icloud where all my pictures are stored.

And there’s no box of stuff to be stored, shelf to be dusted, or bin to be hauled through a downsizing.

When you get ready to downsize – or to tackle that spare room for a tidying – think about how much space you could save if you held on to the story with a picture, instead of holding on to all the items themselves.

Is Now the Time to Sell?

If you’ve got a big downsizing job ahead of you, and want to figure out if your home sale will be worth it, make sure to get an updated property valuation. Just contact me, or check for your property value instantly here.