I moved from a large family home to a two bedroom cottage at retirement village. I love my little cottage. I miss my dearest friends. But I am happy here.
Suggestions:
When you decide to downsize be harsh with yourself. I repacked 20 cartons for the church charity store,as I unpacked because I had no room (and I thought I was harsh beforehand.)
Find new 'homes' for treasured family items you can't keep, even before you start packing.ie, tables lamps ,heirlooms,furniture. The things that must stay in the family.
If you are going to clean out cupboards, start packing as you do it.ie,keep , give to charity ,find a home .
Don't look back once you decide to move. It's not an easy thing to do,especially at our ages, but it's possible to be happy in a new environment. I often sit on my front patio,and thank God for giving me the courage to make the move. Hope something in this is helpful dearest Mona.💐

I live in a two story home too. When we moved here, our children were grown and did not live here. Three of them live here in West Monroe and the oldest is in Wyoming. We were in our late 50's at the time. The upstairs was perfect. It had one room that spanned length of the house, a half bath and one closet. Just right for 2. I got the half by the stairs and he took the window end. I should say the room is about 40 feet long. There was plenty of room for his " office" on his end and all of my office (computer, etc) furniture, 4 sewing machines and lots of sewing and craft materials. He stopped going upstairs when he broke his leg and couldn't go up. It took me longer but I started adapting to stairs that seemed to be higher and higher. I used the stair rail always but found that limited my ability to carry items. When no one was here I sometimes sat and scooted down the way a child would go down. I DID NOT WANT TO MOVE EVERYTHING DOWN! The children decided I had no choice and moved what was necessary down in one day and I was supposed to stay down. That was so irritating so I would go up when I wanted and Did not let them know. I was and still am a stubborn woman. I don't change my way of doing things easily. I'm writing this long tale for a reason. I'm letting you know I didn't move and I didn't change. But I adapted. My downstairs room is my room now and I keep it the way I want it. The door stays closed when I'm not in there so no one has to see a bunch of varied projects taking place in there. In other words, it is a room that confuses everyone but me.
I do stay away from the upstairs room to make them happy. And I'm happy with the new arrangement. If the upstairs had been a bedroom, I would have had no choice. We would have had to move if we couldn't bring the bedroom down. I have had a lot of " happenings" i.e. health issues in my lifetime and so far I have been the winner. When I was Dx with Parkinson, it looked as though I had met my match. I don't plan to admit it if I have. I will continue to complain about this disease and do anything I can to stop its progress but I hate it. It has damaged my life more than even cancer. My advice is that each and every one of us is different and we all have to do things we don't like. But, we should all have options about how we do things that we want to do. If we don't look out for ourselves, we can lose our independence and to me that means PD is winning. Be agreeable, bend a little and have a good attitude. But above all, be the person you are.

We sold our dream home (one that we custom built) in 2005 as Bill was falling down the stairs. We moved into an adaptable one story ranch condo in Dec. of that year. Made a smart move at the right time.

my partner and I had a two storey home and it got to the point that we needed to move. I was stressing and worrying all the time that he would fall down the stairs . Thankfully my partner's PD hadn't progessed so he was able to pack us up while I did all the paperwork, telephoning to cancel and set up our new place. My real estate agent was a gem, he went far and beyond what was called for. He did everything he could to make our move go easy and smooth. I would not have been able to do the move without him or my partner with the packing up. Now that his PD has progressed, we are comfortable in our new surroundings

@A MyParkinsonsTeam Member, I know exactly how you feel. It is overwhelming.

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