"DOWNSIZING AND ORGANIZING YOUR HOME" Lesson Impacts Purchase & Pennryile Area Homemakers

Downsizing your home and transitioning into a smaller living space has become a recent trend for older adults. As people age, their larger homes require upkeep, continued maintenance, and expensive utility bills. Seniors may also face accessibility and self-care challenges stemming from multi-level living. By downsizing and minimizing, a smaller home can provide significant savings on property taxes, utilities, and insurance. The downsizing process is appealing to many, yet intimidating as one thinks about minimizing their personal possessions, ridding clutter, and packing up years of clothing, home goods, heirlooms, and furniture. Downsizing involves sorting, disposing of, and donating household possessions that have accumulated as they transition. 

 In addition to seniors, young adults are finding benefits in minimal, “tiny space” living. Tiny house living provides residents a minimalistic lifestyle, free of mortgage debt and large utility bills; allowing them to focus more on an active, mobile routine rather than house upkeep and maintenance. Whether one is downsizing in their senior years or merely hoping to achieve a more minimal way of living, organizing and purging excessive possessions can be liberating to the homeowner and create a clean, clutter-free space in which they can raise a family or enjoy spending time in. 

In an attempt to address the daunting task of decluttering and downsizing, a program was designed to assess what you own, consider the importance of your belongings, and address the things that you can get rid of. The goal of this program is to help households in Western Kentucky not only achieve cleanliness, but also create a well-organized, accessible, and affordable living space. The target audience for this program was primarily senior adults, who are active participants in the Kentucky Extension Homemakers Association, living in Western Kentucky. The secondary target audience included busy families and parents needing organization tips to implement into active, on-the-go routines.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

As a result of attending this workshop, titled “Downsizing and Organizing Your Home”, participants will:

I. Understand steps of the downsizing process; including how to address decisions that leave one overwhelmed or stressed.

II. Strategies to prepare house and possessions for downsizing into smaller living space, including sorting, disposing of, and donating household possessions.

III. Implement one or more practices for home organization to minimize clutter and/or prepare for moving.

IV. Implement a process to organize and neatly store memorabilia, heirlooms, and keepsake items.

V. Understand and be able to implement practices to create a safe, clean, and accessible living space.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

 The “Downsizing and Organizing Your Home” lesson was presented 13 times in the Pennryile and Purchase regions of Western Kentucky. The lesson was attended by clientele who reside in 17 counties. Facilitators for these lessons were University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Educators Morgan Rousseau and Anna McCoy. Attendance for the lesson included 142 persons, of which 121 were active extension homemakers, while the additional 21 attendees were considered to be from the secondary target audience group of community members. The 121 active homemakers that attended each took a copy of the lesson and publication back to their respective homemaker club and taught it to their particular club in February 2017. The estimated reach of Kentuckians to take part in the “Downsizing and Organizing Your Home” lesson was 1,788 homemaker members.

Content of this lesson included a marketing flyer to be disseminated via newsletters, newspapers, and on social media, as well as a research publication, PowerPoint presentation, and informational hand-out on decluttering from the American Cleaning Institute (see supplemental materials). The lesson included information on downsizing your home, housing options specifically designed to meet the wants and needs of older adults, preparing your home and possessions to move, and organizing your new living space. In addition to downsizing, the lesson also addressed home organization, utilizing various types of storage containers, how to prevent mold and mildew, strategic folding techniques for clothes, visual aids and resources for how to strategically store items inside or outside your home. During the presentation facilitators talked about the importance of accessibility and cleanliness in achieving a well-organized, consolidated, and navigable home. The facilitators provided participants with a hand-out of suggestions of things to throw away as one tackles downsizing and organizing. The facilitators used research-based information from both the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and Environment at the American Cleaning Institute to articulate and meet the program’s learning objectives.

PROGRAM IMPACT

In order to evaluate the “Downsizing and Organizing Your Home” lesson an evaluation was used during the conclusion of each presentation. The evaluation was used to gauge understanding, knowledge retention, and projected behavior change in participants. Of the 142 program attendees, 63 participants (44%) said they were currently downsizing their home and 34 participants (23%) reported that they had previously downsized within the past five years. 

The evaluations revealed participants gained understanding and new knowledge as a result of attending the “Downsizing and Organizing Your Home” lesson. Of the 142 particpants, 81% learned popular housing options available to those seeking to downsize and 95% reported learning new organization techniques to implement as they move and/or store their belongings. Additionally, 94% responded that they understand practices to create safe, accessible, and healthy living spaces, while 88% can recall thrifty ways to save space, store goods efficiently, and organize important keepsake or heirloom possessions.

Significant behavior change as a result of attending this program was noted in participants’’ willingness to minimize clutter and more neatly organize their homes. Of the 142 attendees, 96% of participants indicated that they will implement one or more of the organization and storage methods discussed, 90% reported that they will clear out and discard items they have not used in the past 3-4 years, and 83% responded that they will take inventory of their possessions and discard items they no longer need or use regularly.