In the early 80's, had a tenant that was a retired carrier Navy Officer starting in WWII. He told me that there was family stuff (Cloths, Forniture, dishes and the like) and personal stuff (Photos, Keep sakes & mementos).
At that point in his life he had moved 26 times, his personal stuff all fit in one shoe box!
My wife and have moved only 3 times in our marriage of 46 years. When we married, into the farmhouse almost 7 years later, and into the Condo 30 years later, that was almost 10 years ago.
One of the problems when starting to downsize is your kids wanted certain things but want you to store it forever! We started taking trips to visit the kids for a weekend or a week and always took a full-size pick-up load to them. Sometimes with a warning, sometimes without. I let them decide what to do with it. The largest exception to that is the youngest son lives in NJ and I still have his guns (about 7 long guns)
Rules that can help. Before a move remember that nature abhors a vacuum!
1) Draw a scale map of the new place and figure out what furniture goes in what space. My wife made paper cutouts (dolls) to scale and moved them around the map to figure that out. Include your storage shelves, cabinets and bookcases! Helpful hint: Before the movers arrive I placed a post-it on every item as to the room it went to. (the foreman told me that probably saved 1 to 1.5 hours of their time at $150 an hour for the crew!)
2)You have allotted space for your stuff, trim it down until it fits!
3) Don't use the garage as a holding place until you get around to it! I did that and it took almost a year before the wife could park there.
Things household movers won't move: Guns, gunpowder, ammunition and items over 700 pounds. They were not responsible for particle board furniture (So they weren't careful with the one piece we had- and it got broke!)
There were 4 pick-up loads of guns I put is storage before we put the house for sale. But just the 26 cases of shotgun ammo were a real chore! The reloading supplies were much worse. (close to 100,000 bullets and same for primers, over 150 pounds of powder. Boatload of brass)
The gun safe was empty but weighs 750 pounds, they were going to refuse but the door comes off and that's around 40%. Most reloading "Tools" are in 2 filing cabinets and LOCKED!
For me the loading bench was the big problem! I went from a dedicated room with 17 running feet of bench to a bench of 5 feet between the two cabinets. From 2 progressives, 2 bullet sizing presses, and 5 assorted single and turret presses to 1 progressive, 1 turret, & a mounting plate for 1 single and 1 sizing press on a 5' bench. (I sold or gave the rest away) It was traumatic! (my friends thought it funny, but those that laughed didn't get any of the goodies!)
I talked to Half Priced Books about books they estimated they would pay 10% of printed value, when I took in what would be almost $2000 worth of books, instead of anything close to $200 they offered $5. I said I would burn them for heat first, but took them to Goodwill.
Lastly, be careful on allowing others to help you pack stuff! Things that I wanted to keep got given away and thing I wanted rid of were in boxes marked for keeping! (Goodwill got several thousand dollars of antiques that way)
Dring lots of fluids and eat regularly; AND DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF!
Ivan
