Adventures in Downsizing

mep said:
Nicoff, it isn't just downsizing your audio gear footprint. I'm quoting you here from your original post on this thread:

"The music zone is now in our living area. As for the cinema... well, it's not really a 'cinema room' anymore."

Your living area is a shared space most probably controlled by your wife. And when I say controlled,, I mean the decor, how it's arranged, how your speakers are positioned in the room, and what volume level you can listen to.
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Our new home is slightly smaller, losing about 300 sq ft, but the significant change is the open layout with fewer rooms. Consequently, the main living area, where we've placed the speakers, is actually larger and features higher ceilings covered in wood than the dedicated room in our previous home. My wife and I share similar tastes in decor, so we haven't had any issues there. She also enjoys the music I play, though I now give her a heads-up if I plan to play it very loud, giving her the option to move to another room if she prefers. This arrangement has been working well for us so far.
 
mep, I chalked it up to well.meaning folks. My wife & I are both in our late 70's, retired professionals, and it's just the 2 of us living in a 2-story with a bit of size. Bottom line, we just tell them we're comfortable and should the need arise, we'll put in an elevator!

On an up-sizing note, my inbound Everest is out for delivery today and am waiting for a drop-ship Omega XC from Shunyata. I understand my last 3 panels from GIK will be available for pickup next Tuesday. I think nicoff is absolutely correct on the importance of room acoustics. I had put that off until the end, but should have addressed it much sooner! I can tell you, it has had a monumental improvement on the sound in my room.
 
Along your line of comment mep.

I was at the Dermatologist this week and she commented, asking if my wife and I were both retired now. She then ask if we will be moving now. I said we had no intentions of moving. We have in home care policies when the time comes.

Seemed an odd conversation. She is good at what she does but not terribly personable.
Her skin on her face is so tight you could not tell if she was to smile or frown during a verbal interaction.
 
I am also unsure about the "need" for downsizing. Sure, if you have a large house with space you no longer use or need (but have to clean and climate control) downsizing makes some sense; or perhaps if you have the opportunity to make some money by selling and moving but without giving up the space(s) you use. But downsizing simply for the sake of downsizing? it makes no sense to me, audiophile or not.
 
rbbert said:
I am also unsure about the "need" for downsizing. Sure, if you have a large house with space you no longer use or need (but have to clean and climate control) downsizing makes some sense; or perhaps if you have the opportunity to make some money by selling and moving but without giving up the space(s) you use. But downsizing simply for the sake of downsizing? it makes no sense to me, audiophile or not.
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Nobody downsizes for the sake of "downsizing". Something drives the move, heath, loss of a spouse, life events & changes, expense of a bigger home (depending on where you live). And it for sure has nothing to do with music or audio gear.
 
TopCat said:
mep, I chalked it up to well.meaning folks. My wife & I are both in our late 70's, retired professionals, and it's just the 2 of us living in a 2-story with a bit of size. Bottom line, we just tell them we're comfortable and should the need arise, we'll put in an elevator!

On an up-sizing note, my inbound Everest is out for delivery today and am waiting for a drop-ship Omega XC from Shunyata. I understand my last 3 panels from GIK will be available for pickup next Tuesday. I think nicoff is absolutely correct on the importance of room acoustics. I had put that off until the end, but should have addressed it much sooner! I can tell you, it has had a monumental improvement on the sound in my room.
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Joe, I'm happy to hear that you are in your late 70s and still enjoy listening to music and are still upgrading your system! I find that refreshing.
 
CPP said:
Nobody downsizes for the sake of "downsizing". Something drives the move, heath, loss of a spouse, life events & changes, expense of a bigger home (depending on where you live). And it for sure has nothing to do with music or audio gear.
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That may or may not be true, but there certainly seems to be an expectation from the masses that with retirement comes downsizing your home and lifestyle. I know that from the barrage of questions asking me just that when I announced my retirement date at work. You have outlined other scenarios that cause people to downsize and I would say they are mostly involuntary reasons to downsize and thus the move is forced upon people who find themselves in those circumstances.

The best advice I can give younger people who are planning ahead for their retirement is to get out of debt as quickly as you can. You don't want to retire with a mortgage, credit card debt, and car loans. That's a recipe for disaster.
 
brad225 said:
Along your line of comment mep.

I was at the Dermatologist this week and she commented, asking if my wife and I were both retired now. She then ask if we will be moving now. I said we had no intentions of moving. We have in home care policies when the time comes.

Seemed an odd conversation. She is good at what she does but not terribly personable.
Her skin on her face is so tight you could not tell if she was to smile or frown during a verbal interaction.
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Sounds like your dermatologist is in love with Botox! You can't win the war against wrinkles because time and gravity are a bitch. And people who love them some facelifts only get a couple shots at it before they get the joker face with a permanent smile because your skin has been pulled up so much.
 
mep said:
That may or may not be true, but there certainly seems to be an expectation from the masses that with retirement comes downsizing your home and lifestyle. I know that from the barrage of questions asking me just that when I announced my retirement date at work. You have outlined other scenarios that cause people to downsize and I would say they are mostly involuntary reasons to downsize and thus the move is forced upon people who find themselves in those circumstances.

The best advice I can give younger people who are planning ahead for their retirement is to get out of debt as quickly as you can. You don't want to retire with a mortgage, credit card debt, and car loans. That's a recipe for disaster.
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Never said Retirement drives downsizing.
 
rbbert said:
Patently untrue, as Mark pointed out.
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I guess you didn't read what I wrote. Anyway I really don't care..


Some other FYI; I retired in 2010 13 years before we sold our beach home. I'm over 70. We paid cash for our 3250 sq ft beach home. We sold our beach home in 2023 and yes downsized. Paid cash for the home we moved into and re-invested the rest. We downsized, due to health,(Mark knows that) plus, we just got tired of F&^king sandbags and storm surge and having your home surrounded by water during hurricanes, but that's the risk one takes and now its the ever raising maintenance cost and HIGH ever raising insurance cost of living at the beach,. When your insurance ( if you can get it) cost goes from $2135 a year to $9821 a year in 13 years, not counting flood insurance cost there is a big problem, not to mention the counties failure to maintain the dunes protecting your home. And insurance companies continue with threats if you don't replace a freaking roof or they will cancel your coverage. Total Fla Insurance Co BS. Not sure how many here have compared prices to replace a 3000 sqft+ concrete barrel tile roof lately, its northwards of over $70K in parts of Fla these days. And rather or not its involuntary is baseless. PS: Breathing and circulation are involuntary processes. So you do what you do to either protect your investment, your health you change it and if its downsizing, so be it.

So until people think they can criticize someone whom downsizes, or think they really know, get in their shoes then make a choice. And in my case, it has F@&king zip to do with a WAF, or freaking audio.
 
CPP said:
I guess you didn't read what I wrote. Anyway I really don't care..


Some other FYI; I retired in 2010 13 years before we sold our beach home. I'm over 70. We paid cash for our 3250 sq ft beach home. We sold our beach home in 2023 and yes downsized. Paid cash for the home we moved into and re-invested the rest. We downsized, due to health,(Mark knows that) plus, we just got tired of F&^king sandbags and storm surge and having your home surrounded by water during hurricanes, but that's the risk one takes and now its the ever raising maintenance cost and HIGH ever raising insurance cost of living at the beach,. When your insurance ( if you can get it) cost goes from $2135 a year to $9821 a year in 13 years, not counting flood insurance cost there is a big problem, not to mention the counties failure to maintain the dunes protecting your home. And insurance companies continue with threats if you don't replace a freaking roof or they will cancel your coverage. Total Fla Insurance Co BS. Not sure how many here have compared prices to replace a 3000 sqft+ concrete barrel tile roof lately, its northwards of over $70K in parts of Fla these days. And rather or not its involuntary is baseless. PS: Breathing and circulation are involuntary processes. So you do what you do to either protect your investment, your health you change it and if its downsizing, so be it.

So until people think they can criticize someone whom downsizes, or think they really know, get in their shoes then make a choice. And in my case, it has F@&king zip to do with a WAF, or freaking audio.
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I don’t think anyone disagrees with this. It is the expectation of much of society that downsizing is a necessary part of retirement and/or all children leaving the nest that some of us are referring to. And whether you believe that or not, or whether or not you have encountered that attitude, it is common.
 
We did our first downsizing 11 years ago. The kids have all moved on with their lives, out of town, and the big house (4,400 sf) needed a big makeover, and was taking a lot of effort to keep going. Looked into building a custom home, but that was way too expensive. We ended up finding a newly renovated house 3,400 sf) a mile away. We are both still working full time. My room went from a basic 12x13 untreated wood floor room to a 9.5x14 room with carpet, and room treatments. Some work put in there, providing for great listening.

Our plan is to retire from work at the end of this year (I turned 65 in Feb, she does on Dec) and move to Seattle, to support our daughter who had a daughter last year.

Seattle is a tough housing market. And houses are not big (Zillow is showing 2-3k sq homes in our price range). I have been concentrating on my digital source components this year in anticipation of this move. I’m certain I can get a room to accommodate my speakers, and a headphone setup. I might have to liquidate my vinyl rig though. Vinyl for me includes turntable, phono amp, pre-amp, record cleaning machine with fluids, and vinyl storage.

Being from the Gulf Coast pretty much all of my life, I’ve never had a basement. One of the possibilities in Seattle is to get an unfinished basement to create a room in, with a separate area for RCM, record storage, and work bench.
 
CPP said:
I guess you didn't read what I wrote. Anyway I really don't care..


Some other FYI; I retired in 2010 13 years before we sold our beach home. I'm over 70. We paid cash for our 3250 sq ft beach home. We sold our beach home in 2023 and yes downsized. Paid cash for the home we moved into and re-invested the rest. We downsized, due to health,(Mark knows that) plus, we just got tired of F&^king sandbags and storm surge and having your home surrounded by water during hurricanes, but that's the risk one takes and now its the ever raising maintenance cost and HIGH ever raising insurance cost of living at the beach,. When your insurance ( if you can get it) cost goes from $2135 a year to $9821 a year in 13 years, not counting flood insurance cost there is a big problem, not to mention the counties failure to maintain the dunes protecting your home. And insurance companies continue with threats if you don't replace a freaking roof or they will cancel your coverage. Total Fla Insurance Co BS. Not sure how many here have compared prices to replace a 3000 sqft+ concrete barrel tile roof lately, its northwards of over $70K in parts of Fla these days. And rather or not its involuntary is baseless. PS: Breathing and circulation are involuntary processes. So you do what you do to either protect your investment, your health you change it and if its downsizing, so be it.

So until people think they can criticize someone whom downsizes, or think they really know, get in their shoes then make a choice. And in my case, it has F@&king zip to do with a WAF, or freaking audio.
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Chris-You had lots of reasons why moving/downsizing was the right thing for you to do and I completely understand the decisions you made. What I was addressing was the automatic script that when you retire you should automatically sell your house and downsize.
 
Bones13 said:
We did our first downsizing 11 years ago. The kids have all moved on with their lives, out of town, and the big house (4,400 sf) needed a big makeover, and was taking a lot of effort to keep going. Looked into building a custom home, but that was way too expensive. We ended up finding a newly renovated house 3,400 sf) a mile away. We are both still working full time. My room went from a basic 12x13 untreated wood floor room to a 9.5x14 room with carpet, and room treatments. Some work put in there, providing for great listening.

Our plan is to retire from work at the end of this year (I turned 65 in Feb, she does on Dec) and move to Seattle, to support our daughter who had a daughter last year.

Seattle is a tough housing market. And houses are not big (Zillow is showing 2-3k sq homes in our price range). I have been concentrating on my digital source components this year in anticipation of this move. I’m certain I can get a room to accommodate my speakers, and a headphone setup. I might have to liquidate my vinyl rig though. Vinyl for me includes turntable, phono amp, pre-amp, record cleaning machine with fluids, and vinyl storage.

Being from the Gulf Coast pretty much all of my life, I’ve never had a basement. One of the possibilities in Seattle is to get an unfinished basement to create a room in, with a separate area for RCM, record storage, and work bench.
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Good luck with your move Bones.
 
In an example of synchronicity there is an article in today's WSJ tangentially discussing the desire (or lack of) to downsize
 
mep said:
Sounds like your dermatologist is in love with Botox! You can't win the war against wrinkles because time and gravity are a bitch. And people who love them some facelifts only get a couple shots at it before they get the joker face with a permanent smile because your skin has been pulled up so much.
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I don't fight the war on wrinkles. That is a losing battle. I only go to have her look at funny spots and scrape off the bad ones.

We have a friend that got a full face lift at 68. The first time we saw her 4 months later she looked like she could have starred in a Martian movie. It was freaky. A year later she looked 25 years younger. It just looks out of place in my opinion. Kind of like teeth that are much to white for your age.
Sorry, I am going to piss a number of people off but, just my old, wrinkly and off white appearance.
 
mep said:
Chris-You had lots of reasons why moving/downsizing was the right thing for you to do and I completely understand the decisions you made. What I was addressing was the automatic script that when you retire you should automatically sell your house and downsize.
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Oh I agree with the automatic assumptions that when you retire you need to shrink your house along with everything else. .Must be in some retirement planning script the investment counselors are using these days.
 
on my fourth year of retirement, we never 'upsized', 2100 sq ft is perfect for momma and I ! I'll take my acre and a half with woods and privacy any day !
 
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