A quick note before this week’s issue: The Well Designed Life is arriving two days earlier than usual because I’ll be speaking about downsizing and renovating at Kerrisdale Community Centre this Thursday evening. Since this week’s article explores many of the same questions I’ll be discussing at the event, I wanted to share it with you in time to join us if the subject is relevant to you.
Moving into a smaller home requires thoughtful planning. Don’t rush through this process and get the help of an interior design professional to help you evaluate your current and future needs.
Downsizing is often described as a real estate decision: sell the family home, buy something smaller and simplify your life. But after more than 30 years designing and renovating homes in Vancouver, I’ve found that the reality is considerably more complicated. You’re not simply choosing a smaller property. You’re deciding what to do with a home that may have served you for decades while simultaneously trying to anticipate what you’ll need from the next one. That means thinking about furniture, storage, entertaining, family, accessibility, maintenance, renovation costs and the way you expect to live five, 10 or even 20 years from now. Get those decisions right and downsizing can be enormously liberating. Get them wrong and you can end up spending a great deal of money moving into a home that is smaller, but not necessarily better. Before putting the house on the market or falling in love with a new condo, there are three things I think every downsizer should consider.
Sit down and evaluate what your current needs are and how much of your lifestyle will change once you have less stuff and less square footage. Figure out what you’ll require for the next phase of your life where you’ve gotten rid of a lot of things you no longer need.
1. Start With Your Life, Not a Square-Footage Target
People often begin downsizing with an arbitrary number in mind. They may have lived in a 3,200-square-foot house for decades, the children have moved out, several rooms are rarely used and the yard and maintenance are becoming burdensome. A 1,000-square-foot condo can therefore seem like a logical next step. The problem is that reducing your home by more than two-thirds isn't merely eliminating unused bedrooms. It can fundamentally change the way you live. A dining table that comfortably accommodated family gatherings may no longer fit. Furniture collected over 30 years may have nowhere to go. There may be no proper guest room when children or grandchildren stay overnight, or enough storage for the things you genuinely want to keep. Someone who still works from home may discover that the second bedroom has to perform three jobs at once. None of this means you shouldn't move into 1,000 square feet. It means you should determine whether 1,000 square feet supports your life before deciding that this is what “downsizing” is supposed to look like.
I think a much better starting point is to forget about square footage temporarily and make an inventory of how you actually use your home. Which activities matter to you? Do you entertain regularly? Do family members stay overnight? Do you need two separate places to watch television or read? Does one person require a home office? What furniture is important enough to come with you? How much storage do you realistically need? Once you understand those requirements, you can begin evaluating floor plans against them. You may discover that 1,400 or 1,600 square feet is the right answer rather than 1,000. You may also discover that a thoughtfully planned 1,500-square-foot home works better than another property with 2,000 square feet because circulation, storage and room proportions are better. Downsizing shouldn't be a competition to see how little space you can occupy. The objective is to eliminate the space you no longer need while protecting the parts of your lifestyle that still matter.
Look at what’s available—old and new—and see which one fits your needs. Ask the help of a design profesisonal or design-build expert to better decide which one will fit your new life better.
2. Look Beyond What a Property Appears to Be Today
The next challenge is understanding what you're actually buying. This is particularly important with presale properties, where a beautifully presented floor plan and sophisticated marketing package can make it difficult to appreciate how the finished home will really feel. Dimensions tell you how long and wide a room is, but they don't reproduce the experience of standing inside it. They don't tell you how generous the ceiling height will feel, how daylight moves through the rooms, what you'll see through the windows or whether a living room becomes uncomfortably tight once you add a sofa, chairs and tables. When you're moving from a larger house, these differences can be much more noticeable than you expect because every part of the new home has to perform more efficiently.
Existing properties present the opposite opportunity because you can see what you're buying, but you also need to distinguish between what can be changed and what probably can't. An unattractive kitchen may actually be an advantage if the underlying space is excellent and the purchase price reflects its condition. Bathrooms can be renovated, lighting improved, flooring replaced and storage added. Custom millwork can transform an awkward wall into something genuinely useful. By contrast, low ceilings, poorly positioned windows, narrow rooms, limited natural light and fundamental problems with the floor plan can be extremely difficult or impossible to correct. This is why I sometimes think a designer is more useful before a purchase than after it. Before committing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to a property, it can be worthwhile having someone assess whether the home can realistically become what you want it to be and what that transformation is likely to involve. A beautiful countertop can be replaced. A fundamentally unsuitable space is another matter.
Don’t rush into anything. Your current space may need a cosmetic update to increase your resale value and enable it to sell faster. And your your new and smaller apartment may require some custom work to make it suitable for your new life.
3. Understand the Renovation Equation on Both Sides of the Move
The home you're leaving deserves just as much strategic thought as the one you're buying. There was a period during the pandemic when extremely strong demand meant some properties attracted competing offers despite dated kitchens, bathrooms and interiors. Sellers shouldn't automatically assume they'll encounter the same response today. When buyers walk into a home that feels tired, they don't necessarily calculate the renovation cost accurately. They may mentally subtract a much larger amount because they're also pricing in uncertainty, inconvenience and the fear that the work will become more complicated than expected. That doesn't mean spending $300,000 renovating a house you're planning to sell. In many cases that would make little financial sense. But doing absolutely nothing can sometimes leave money on the table as well.
If you're considering selling within six to 12 months, I think it's worth having both a realtor and designer assess the house before committing to improvements. Sometimes a relatively focused combination of paint, flooring, lighting and selective kitchen or bathroom work can change how buyers perceive a property without turning the preparation for sale into a major construction project. The same financial discipline should follow you into the next purchase. A 10-year-old condo may look perfectly acceptable during a viewing, but after studying it carefully you may realize that you want new flooring, better lighting, custom storage, updated bathrooms and changes to the kitchen. A $1.5-million condo that requires another substantial investment to suit your needs should be evaluated differently from an older one that requires some updates but costs half that amount. The purchase price is only one part of the cost of your next home. What matters is the total amount required to turn that property into a place you will actually enjoy living in.
Successful downsizing, then, isn't really about ending up with the smallest home possible. It's about becoming much more intentional about the space you keep. Ideally, you emerge with fewer rooms to clean, less property to maintain and less unused space, but with the functions and comforts that matter most to you preserved or even improved. That's when downsizing stops feeling like giving something up and starts becoming what it should be: designing a home around the life you're moving into.
INVITATION TO A NEIGHBOURHOOD TALK
Thinking of Downsizing?
Get practical advice from local experts before you make your move.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Kerrisdale Community Centre
5851 West Blvd, Vancouver, BC
Featured Expert Panel
George Verdolaga
Design Principal, Flowform Design Group Ltd.
Interior Design & Home Renovation Expert
Alisa Aragon-Lloyd
Mortgage & Financing Expert
Mortgages Made Simple
Tracy Theemes
Financial Advisor & Wealth Management
Plan Today for Tomorrow