When Life Changes, Home Changes Too
There are countless reasons we move from one home to another. Sometimes we’re ready for less space. Sometimes our family, work or location changes. And sometimes we simply realize that the home that served us beautifully for one chapter isn’t the home we want for the next. Whatever brings about the move, downsizing interior design involves much more than deciding what fits. You’re deciding what comes with you, what works in the new space, what you may be ready to leave behind and what your next home needs to feel complete.
Thoughtful downsizing interior design begins before the moving truck arrives. Pamela Sandall Design helps clients create a plan for the home they’re moving into while thoughtfully considering the furniture, artwork, collections and belongings they already own. The goal isn’t simply to fit your old home into a smaller one. It’s to create a beautiful, functional new home that feels completely like you.
Decades of Experience With Downsizing and Relocation
Helping people navigate changing homes isn’t new to Pamela Sandall Design. Throughout Pamela’s career, she has worked with hundreds of homeowners preparing for moves and new chapters. For more than a decade, a significant part of her work focused on helping homeowners prepare their properties for sale and relocation. That often meant looking at the home through two lenses at once: determining what needed to change to successfully market the property while helping clients edit their belongings and begin making decisions about what would move forward with them.
Her residential design work has frequently involved the other side of that equation: helping clients relocate from one home to another, often with different proportions, different needs and furnishings, artwork and belongings they don’t necessarily want to leave behind. Pamela’s experience also includes designing the interiors of Emerald Pointe, a 100,000-square-foot senior living community in Oregon, as well as more recent work involving private residences within retirement communities. These projects are simply different variations of something she has been helping clients do for decades: use thoughtful downsizing and relocation interior design to create a home that fits the way they want to live now.
What Should Come With You When You Downsize?
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when downsizing is assuming that everything you love in your current home should automatically make the trip. It isn’t simply a question of whether something technically fits. Does it work with the proportions of the new room? Is it still comfortable? Does it serve a purpose? Is it something you genuinely love? Is there another piece that matters more? Just as importantly, what absolutely SHOULD come with you?
Pamela Sandall Design has always believed that a beautifully designed home doesn’t require throwing away everything you already own and starting over. Favorite furniture, family pieces, artwork and collections are often exactly what give a new home its soul. Downsizing interior design is about thoughtfully deciding which pieces deserve their place, understanding how they’ll work in the new home and knowing when something new will make everything else work better.
Plan Your New Home Before You Move Into It
Whenever possible, we begin planning the new home before the moving truck does. Using floor plans, measurements, photographs and information about the furnishings you already own, we can determine what works where, identify potential problems and see where something new may be needed. That relocation interior design plan might include furniture layouts, storage, lighting, rugs, window treatments, artwork, new furnishings or even finish changes that would be much easier to complete before move-in.
Instead of moving everything and figuring it out afterward, you’ll know what has a home before it ever gets packed. For clients moving into a smaller home, this can also make the editing process considerably easier because decisions aren’t being made in the abstract. We aren’t simply asking whether you should keep the dining table. We’re determining whether that dining table works beautifully in the home you’re actually moving into.
Making a Smaller Home Feel Like Your Home
A new home shouldn’t feel like the leftovers from the old one. Once we know what you’re bringing, we can fill in what’s missing and rethink how favorite pieces are used. Perhaps the old sectional overwhelms the new living room but your favorite chairs are perfect. Maybe your dining table stays but needs different lighting above it. Artwork may need an entirely new arrangem