Month: September 2018

When moving into assisted living or a retirement community, you’ll have a lot of new things to adapt to. One thing to remember is that you won’t have an entire house to look after and move into. This helps to take a lot of the burden off you in terms of household chores and other daily demands.

It also means you’ll be downsizing when it comes to moving all your belongings and decorating your new apartment. So, some furniture and other items will need to be left behind or sold when you make the move. Still, it’s important that you personalize your apartment so that it feels like home. Here are a few ways to achieve this while still decluttering and downsizing your life.

Prioritize

When it comes to deciding what to take with you and what to leave behind, you might need to make some tough decisions. It’s the perfect time to declutter and get rid of some of the items you never use or that hold no sentimental meaning to you. At the same time, it’s important to keep those things that are meaningful to you – the things that will make your new apartment feel like home. You probably won’t have space for all your furniture, for example, but maybe you’ve got a favorite chair that you always sit in at home that you don’t want to leave behind. Small touches like this are a great way to personalize your new place.

Decorate

You should try to make your new space your own, and decorating to your own tastes is a big part of this. An apartment that reflects your personality and interests will be much homelier. This may involve painting the walls a new color, adding accessories like cushions and throw rugs, and decorating the walls with photos of your family or your favorite artwork.

Create separate spaces

Even in a small apartment, you can still define separate spaces for different functions. If you sleep, relax, pursue hobbies, and socialize in the same space, it can be difficult to separate these parts of your life. So, you should try to create specific places for these different activities. Have an area where you entertain guests, and organized workspace where you can write or draw, for example, and a living space for reading or watching television, so that you don’t end up sitting in bed doing everything.

Adjusting to living in a retirement community can be a challenge at first, but any place you live can feel like home if you personalize it to suit your own tastes, even if it’s a smaller space than what you’re used to.

If it comes to a time when your parent or parents need to move into a retirement community or an assisted living community, it’s important that they get all the support they can. You should understand what is involved in their big move so that you can help them through it, answer all their questions, and prepare them as much as possible. Read on for our tips on navigating this move.

Talk to them

Moving out of a home that they may have lived in for decades and perhaps raised children and grandchildren in is bound to be an emotional time. It’s important that you talk with your parents openly during this time to help them through it.

If you educate yourself as much as possible on the moving process and the place they are moving to, then you will be better able to answer any questions they may have, which can assuage their concerns.

Tour the facility

If your parents are resistant to moving, it’s likely that the image they have in their head of a retirement community is worse than the reality. Seeing the home and community they’ll be moving to can help to the transition and bring them more peace of mind. They can see where they’ll be living and the level of privacy they’ll have, as well as all the perks of living in a community.

They may also be able to talk to staff and current residents to get to know them and have any more questions they have answered.

Packing

There will likely be a lot of packing to do, so you and other family members should help as much as possible through this process. Alternatively, you could hire a local packing service to take off some of the burden. Either way, it’s a good idea to be there with your parents during packing, as it can be an emotional time, seeing all of your belongings and memories moved out of your home.

Getting affairs in order

You can also shoulder the burden for your parents when it comes to sorting out their affairs. Are they selling the house or will it be kept in the family or rented out to tenants? Simple things can often be overlooked like informing local health providers that they will be moving out of the area. Then there’s also the finances involved in moving to their new community.

We wish you the best of luck through this difficult transition. Bermuda Village is a welcoming retirement community in Bermuda Run, NC. If you’re yet to choose your parents’ new home, find out if our community is the right fit for them.