Last January we decided to downsize. We put our 'forever' home on the market and spent the next nine months frantically tidying up, then getting out of the way, so the estate agents could guide prospective buyers around. We'd moved in when I was three months pregnant with my first daughter.
Each viewing was agony.
So why did we decide to move? Well, the bump is now 23 - and finishing her master's with plans to travel again next year (she has already lived in Paris). Her little sister is doing her finals at Manchester and is moving to Brighton. Our house, once full of teens and laughter as we lived right near their school, had become weirdly quiet. I loved it when our home vibrated with the energy of young people. But suddenly our four-bedroomed London gaff felt empty.
My husband and I rattled around in its big rooms. The dining table sat 12. We'd retreat to our bedroom feeling guilty about the two empty floors. In winter it was chilly because it seemed extravagant to heat such a barn of a place. On top of that, we still had a mortgage, which had got considerably heftier in the wake of Liz Truss. And given I'd left the corporate job that had sustained us all in style for two and a half decades, the monthly payments began to feel onerous. We could still afford it but I began to wonder whether we needed our trophy house. We'd bought it because it was beautiful, in the school catchment and easily commutable to our offices. But with the girls gone and both of us working from home, this house, in this place, was inessential.
It became increasingly obvious that downsizing - or as I prefer to call it 'rightsizing' - for the next phase of our lives was the sensible thing to do. I used to write a property column, and I remembered endless estate agents saying to me how often they'd seen people stay in houses too big and unnecessary, for the sake of 'hosting Christmas'. I now run a business that advises on midlife and the transitions that come with it. I've learnt that to make the most of what for many of us will be a 100-year life, we need to get ahead of major life shifts; tool ourselves up for the next stage, in an intentional rather than passive way.
Looking around me, I decided that we already had everything we needed for this next phase; we just needed to repurpose our greatest asset, the house, to enable the transition. Rather than having all our family Lego blocks in this property, we could sell it and redistribute the liquidated funds. We worked out that we could pay off the mortgage, buy somewhere smaller and still have money in the bank: good for helping our kids on to the property market in due course. But mostly good for us as we could get off the mortgage treadmill and spend more time doing what we wanted. Our calculation was that a smaller house - or flat - would equal more freedom, more time together and less stress.
In theory it all sounded great.
After some false starts we finally sold the house, a nerve-racking business in a London property market that was falling constantly (flats we looked at in January 2025 are still for sale in March 2026 but often for £150k less...). We sold below the initial asking price, but still did OK (and, yes, I know how lucky we are to be in such a position).
We viewed more than 40 flats, finding it difficult to reconcile the kinds of places we could buy with our reduced budget with the space and light we were used to. I began to realise how much snobbery and status is bound up with where we live. I also now understand why so many of our friends have moved out of London; it's a way of releasing cash while not diminishing status. For the price of a two-bed in Dartmouth Park (our preferred area, as it is right near Hampstead Heath, where we swim every day), you can buy a palace with eight acres in Devon. We briefly considered moving out of London; but a month in a friend's house near Dartmoor last summer was a powerful reminder of the community, friends and cosmopolitan delights we'd be giving up if we went the full rural. I've lived in Camden Town my entire life; it's grimy but it's my Ends, as the kids say. I want to stay in my hood.
Eventually, we found a three-bedroom flat round the corner from our original house, on a busier road behind some shops. It also had a big living room (to fit the books, mighty sofa and dining table). It was a eureka moment. But the day after we exchanged on our family home, the flat we'd spent so long finding fell through.
It was a heavy blow. I cried on the phone with the estate agent, my heart pounding in terror. The removal men were booked, the contracts signed - we had to move out. So it came to pass that after 23 years - we had two weeks to find a rental. Eek.
Luckily, the housing gods were generous. I rang every estate agent in the area - and we found somewhere. We love our rental. It's a mile from our old house and has soft-close cupboards and swanky lights. It's smaller but feels like an upgrade. That is not to underplay the hell of leaving our home. It was a terrible wrench. It was where we watched our girls grow from tots to teens. Their bedroom walls were scrawled with their favourite poems and sayings. Every inch contained precious memories.
A pal, who sold his beloved family home in Devon to downsize, suggested we did a family farewell ritual. So, before the girls returned to uni for the term, the four of us assembled. We lit a candle and placed an object from the house that meant a lot to us in the fireplace. I put my rose-quartz globe that I'd held through both my children's births and symbolises love and motherhood on this makeshift 'altar'.
My eldest brought a book she loved (their dad read to them every night before bed; she is studying literature). The little one brought her beloved teddy, a symbol of childhood love and security. My husband a plastic figure of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo – a family joke and a symbol of all the games we've played. We thanked the house and talked about our time there. We cried (or rather I did). The girls thought it was another bonkers mum ritual, but we all found it cathartic.
Alongside the sad farewells was the practical task of shedding possessions for the downsize. I learned that when you need stuff and buy it, it is expensive. But when you want to get rid of that Heal's lamp or antique chest, those once costly items have NO value. If you're lucky, someone will take it away if you put it on Freecycle or in the street. We took bags of clothes to the charity shop; cleared out endless items. We had thousands of books (my husband and I are both writers); about half have had to go. Our old house had massive eaves for our bell tent; camping kit; papers (so many papers); dressing-up stuff - an attic full of junk. Most has now gone. My husband did about 100 trips to the local recycling centre and we still have way too much stuff (one room in our rental is called the Room Of Doom as it is filled with boxes). It's exhausting sorting and chucking things away. But by the end I felt lighter.
And then there was moving day itself. A burly team of Kiwis from the removal firm arrived playing Heart 80s Radio and cheerily started packing. I wept as I felt them rip up the roots I had spent years growing; it was visceral, like someone rummaging around in the guts of my life. For a while I wandered around weeping and getting in the way. But then I found a brilliant outlet for the grief and stress: cleaning. My husband had been frantically polishing dusty surfaces for weeks - the top of the bookshelves, under beds, the interiors of cupboards. On those moving days, I joined him. As our wonderful packers (always pay for proper removals, best cash you'll ever spend) stuffed our life into boxes, we systematically scrubbed our way out of the house, removing every trace of ourselves. It felt like a ritual cleansing as well as an actual one.
It was surreal to say goodbye to the house after so long, to shut the door for the final time - but also, after all the months of build-up, a relief. It was done. And as soon as I let myself into the rental and we started setting up our new home - the grief turned to excitement. I talked to my daughter about it on the phone. 'It's like me setting up my room at uni, every term,' she said. 'It's fun!' She was right. We just hadn't done it for a very long while. We drank champagne and toasted the 'new gaff' and felt surprisingly cheery about our new chapter.
So, six months on - how do I feel? Well, we still haven't found a new place to buy. But that's OK. I've learnt that downsizing/rightsizing isn't a 'one and done' event, it's a process. It's hard to leave a long-term home and find and buy the next house all at once. And given the high rate of stamp duty, you don't want to get it wrong and have to move again. The onward step is hard because our sense of what we are going to need next keeps shifting. Sometimes we need space for four of us - but not very often. We know our kids might need to come back and live with us, but they are adamant they want to get out into the world. A little shrinking of the nest (if it is too cosy why would they ever leave particularly since we live in Central London?) is a good way to encourage them to start their own lives.
There is a lot of debate in my community about what we owe our adult children. I think we fall in the middle of the spectrum. One couple I know have just bought a loft, with one bedroom. What about your kids, I asked? ‘There’s a sofa bed,’ the dad replied. Others are staying put in houses that have become mausoleums to their former family life; the kids’ bedrooms musty from disuse... we all must choose.
But what I have realised during all of this - and the kids have remarked on this too - is that what makes home home isn't bricks and mortar or a particular view, it's us. It's me, their dad and all our stuff - the beloved sofa, the food we make, the pictures, the books, the smell.
Home, I've learnt, is wherever we set up our burrow. It's striking that all our guests and family come to the new house and say: it feels just like the old one. That's because it is our place, with our stuff and our vibe. Home isn't a particular house; it's wherever you choose to make it.
So - do it, put aside your ego and downsize. You won't regret it. It's fun at 55 to have a new phase of life. It was hard to do, but we are so glad we have.
Eleanor Mills is the founder of noon.org.uk, a community for midlifers, and the author of Much More To Come (Harper Collins, £10.99)*
*To order a copy for £9.34 until 5 April, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over £25