While not an ideal scenario, moving from a house to an apartment at times becomes a necessity. Unfortunately, it’s never an easy transition. The move involves reimagining and reworking your lifestyle, and you will need to prepare yourself mentally as well as practically for living in an apartment, especially if you’ve never experienced it before.
Moving From a House to an Apartment
Here are some of the top lifestyle changes you might have to make when you move from a house to a flat:
- Smaller Living Space
- Alternate Storage Solutions
- Lack of Outdoor Areas
- Proximity to Neighbours
- Increasing Rental Costs
- Shared Amenities
If you’re planning to downsize and move to a flat, you probably have a good reason for doing so. You might have a house that’s too big for your family now since the kids have moved out, or you might not be able to afford the rent or maintenance of a house due to financial difficulties. Either way, you firstly need to plan ahead and prepare yourself mentally for the move.
Start the search for an apartment early and while you search, get yourself accustomed to some of the changes we’ve mentioned above. We’ll discuss each of these in detail below to give you a better idea of what to expect and anticipate while moving from a house to an apartment.
Smaller Living Space
No matter how grand and luxurious your apartment is, it cannot compare to owning or living in a house over two or more floors. Thus, the first thing that will hit you hard is the reduced amount of space, not just for storage, but for your furnishings, your everyday tasks, your mobility inside the home, and so on. Be sure to measure your furniture before you pack it up and take it to the new flat because it’s going to become incredibly inconvenient to see your king-sized bed not going through the door or fitting in the bedroom.
Most apartments will offer smaller square footage overall, and unless you are moving into a penthouse, be prepared for a single floor plan living space. While you might still need to climb the stairs or take an elevator up to your flat, the apartment itself will all be on the same level, which can feel like an intrusion of privacy to many people.
Alternate Storage Solutions
Well, let’s be honest about it. If you’ve got less space for your essentials, you will barely have any for your storage. So, one of the major lifestyle changes that come with downsizing is that you will have to sort through your collections and determine exactly what is worth keeping and taking to the new place. Since many of the things you can discard might have sentimental value for you, you will need to learn to let go in an effort to not clutter the new apartment with belongings that you will never use again.
Here’s an ingenious hack to declutter your home over a weekend. Sort your stuff into three piles: the keep pile, the discard pile, and the donate pile. Once you’ve organised all your collectables, clothes, and accessories into these three piles, go through the keep pile again and remove anything else that you know will only take up precious space that you already don’t have. Make it a point to not browse through the other two piles again, or you will end up rethinking your decision.
Once the belongings have been sorted, pack up the keep pile, discard the unusable items, and donate the other items to needy persons or a non-profit organisation, where they can be put to good use.
Aside from reducing the amount of stuff you own, the move from a house to a flat also means looking into alternate storage solutions, such as under the bed storage, floor to wall shelving, or cupboards, wall hooks and hangings, and multi-purpose furniture to name a few. You can even look for an apartment that comes with a separate storage area or an extra room that you can convert into a storage area for your belongings.
Lack of Outdoor Areas
If you love spending time in the garden in the evening, then moving from a house to an apartment will be a major shocker. There’s barely any space in apartment buildings dedicated to outdoor areas, and even apartments with balconies hardly provide breathing room at times.
Under the circumstances that your new flat offers a spacious balcony, you can set it up with a couple of chairs and a few potted plants to stick to your evening routine. However, that might take up the space to hang your clothes to dry, meaning you’ll miss seeing the setting sun. Apartment complexes that offer a large communal park or garden are a good option for people who are accustomed to having an outdoor area but cannot afford or care for a house anymore.
Moreover, if you own any pets, they’ll be driven up the walls at the lack of outdoor space, so make sure you at least have an area park nearby for quick short walks. Also, the apartment building should be pet-friendly to accommodate your furry friend.
The lack of outdoor space will also be bothersome for avid gardeners who love growing produce since there is little to no sunlight coming into most apartments and no space to grow fruit trees and bushes.
Proximity to Neighbours
Most homeowners love their privacy and security. The sense of being in your own world within your walls is amazing but short-lived, especially if you’re about to move to a flat. Sure, flats give you that added layer of security with CCTV surveillance of the entire complex, a guarded lobby, and friendly neighbours who will keep an eye on your apartment in your absence. However, if you’re not used to sharing walls with your neighbours, you’re in for a rollercoaster ride.
While apartment living gives that additional sense of living within a community where everyone knows everyone else and people are always around to care for you in your bad times, having an annoying or nosy neighbour can be a nightmare. From loud noises that carry through to the other flats to neighbours that frequently drop in just to say hi, you’ll get to experience a little bit of everything when you move from a house to a flat.
Shared Amenities
Modern apartment complexes being built nowadays do not just offer you a roof over your head. They provide a complete luxury living lifestyle, along with a range of shared amenities, like a pool, a gym, a garden or play area, covered floors dedicated to car parking, high-speed lifts, standby generators, and more. So, you should choose your apartment carefully and consider the perks coming with an apartment before you make your decision.
An important thing to keep in mind is that all of these amenities and facilities are shared by all the residents of a society. So, cleanliness and privacy might be nagging doubts in your mind when you avail these benefits. Make sure that the building and its premises are well-maintained before you move in, so you don’t end up investing your money into the wrong project.
Ultimately, you need to determine whether you’re ready for the lifestyle changes you need to make before moving from a house to an apartment. But if you decide to make the move, you will have to keep an open mind about the entire experience and embrace it to the fullest. Remember why apartments make a better living option for you in comparison to a house, which includes better security and a reduced responsibility of the additional amenities since the building is being maintained by the management committee as a whole.
Keep reading our posts on Zameen Blog for more lifestyle tips and tricks. We are just an email away at blog@zameen.com for your suggestions and queries.
