As Senior Move Managers in Knoxville, Tennessee, we take the load off, so you can concentrate on other things. We are experienced and gentle experts in downsizing, packing, and everything related to senior move preparation. Here’s what we mean:
Let’s say that your aging parents have decided to downsize and move to a retirement community in the Knoxville area, and are looking forward to the prospect of no more cooking, cleaning, or yard work. This is a big move, with lots to consider, and they’ll need your help.
A friend asks if you’re going to hire a Senior Move Manager to help, but you quickly brush off the idea. “No problem – we don’t have to hire anyone,” you think to yourself. “We’ll just pick out a great new place, clear out a lot of old stuff, do some packing, and call a moving company. Done!”
How does a Senior Move Manager help?
A few days later, you start looking through the Knoxville senior-living directories and find several independent-living communities that look perfect for your parents. You spend two days calling the ones that look best and set up appointments to tour the facilities.
A few weeks later, after several tours, you start to see that this process is more complicated and time-consuming than you thought it would be. You’re tired. Your parents are excited but are exhausted. Looking ahead to the process of sorting through your parents’ possessions, wondering how all their possessions will fit into the new place, packing everything, and knowing there might be lots of unforeseen problems, you start to realize you might need some help.
Searching through the brochures and notes you collected during the tours, you find the contact information for a trusted and highly recommended local Senior Move Manager – DunnRite Transitions. That’s me.
Our experience with senior downsizing, packing, unpacking, move planning, and friendly service matters
I’m Linda Dunn, and I’m a certified Senior Move Manager with over twelve years of experience helping older adults with all aspects of living transitions: Choosing senior-living facilities, recommending movers, downsizing, professional packing, custom floor plans, and more.
If you and your parents haven’t chosen the new home yet, you will probably spend a lot of time and energy finding just the right place, and I can make that process much easier for you and for your parents.
My hand-picked staff and I have years of experience working with several retirement communities and can make excellent recommendations – saving you time and aggravation by recommending only the communities that are just right for your parents. But that’s not all.
People love our downsizing services
In addition to helping you choose the new home that’s just right, we can help with lots of other parts of this big move. What about all the possessions your parents have collected over the years? The pictures on the walls. The knickknacks on the shelves. The table lamps. The books. The special heirlooms and collectibles. The family photos. Everything in the kitchen. Most people have lots of “stuff,” and every piece requires some thought and consideration. And in many cases, the new living quarters won’t have enough space for all these possessions.
At some point, you’re likely to realize that the amount of time and work is just going to be too much for you and your parents, so you try to enlist other family members. But very often, work, school, travel, and other obligations make it almost impossible to set up a schedule.
Of course, you could sit down with your parents for a day or so (or even longer), sorting through closets and boxes, and trying to help them decide what to keep and what just won’t fit. But sorting through all the possessions is often stressful not only you and for the family members who might try to help, but also for your aging parents who often become physically and emotionally exhausted by the process.
So, you start sorting through the rooms, the closets, the cabinets, the basement, the garage and the attic yourself. You start to write a list of what will move to the new place, and what personal items other family members want to keep. All too often this creates tension among family members, resulting in disagreements and hurt. You try hard, and you make every effort to keep the peace and work through this process.
This downsizing could go much easier for all concerned. At DunnRite, we’ve helped many aging people, and understand how to provide the extra help and support they need. And our clients are often pleasantly surprised when they see how we make an exhausting ordeal almost fun and definitely much easier.
Downsizing and rightsizing means careful sorting and determining what to do with every piece – and the sorting must be done in an organized manner. We work with clients one-on-one to help make decisions. If a client has a lot of clothing, we measure the hanging space in the closets at the new place (if possible), so we know how much will fit. Duplicates, clothing that’s out of style, or the wrong size might be donated to a worthy cause.
The dining room at the new home might offer three meals a day, so maybe they won’t need so many kitchen items. It’s a good idea to keep a place setting for four, and essential items including coffee pot and mugs for a leisurely breakfast in the apartment.
It’s important that people continue with their favorite hobbies in their new home – but maybe on a smaller scale. For example, a client who has done a lot of sewing and quilting might have to evaluate how much of this activity will continue, and how much will fit in the new apartment. Another client may have saved a lot of paperwork and will need help to set up a better system that will work in the future.
If you decide to hold a garage sale, you’ll have to find someone to help, since this will probably be a lot bigger than a typical garage sale. And if you want to have an estate sale, this means going online to look for someone reputable and making appointments for those people to estimate the cost of your sale. Most estate-sale companies require a minimum number of items in order hold a sale, which can be a problem since very often, downsized houses don’t have enough to do a full sale. We can help with all these issues.
We know that it’s extremely important to save and protect heirlooms and family, and we work hard to be sure everything is handled with great care. Also, this time of transition is often a good time to distribute some of these valuable possessions to family members. As trusted helpers, we have often been asked to give an objective opinion to help make this distribution easier and fair.
Professional packing makes a difference
If you’re doing all this yourself, you’re going to need a lot of packing materials. Probably more than you expect. So, you might go online or go to some stores, compare prices, and try to guess how many boxes, how much packing tape, and other supplies you’ll have to buy. During the weekends before the move, you will probably be the one who has to get other family members and friends (if any) lined up to come and help with the many hours of packing. And someone will have to make sure to mark what’s in every box and what room it will go to.
At DunnRite Transitions, our years of experience means we can accurately estimate how much you’ll need for packing materials, and we can provide all the necessary materials, saving you a huge amount of work. Unlike so many others, we are professional packers – we don’t use day-labor for packing and unpacking. And our method of packing during the sorting process helps reduce stress as moving day approaches. We’ll pack the things that aren’t needed for daily living, and the things that were designated for discard or donation will already be out of the way.
See what our clients say about us.
We can even do the unpacking for you
When moving day comes, and the moving company we recommended arrives, all boxes will be ready to go, indexed and properly marked.
If you decide to ask family members to help with unpacking at the new place, things can get chaotic and disorganized, and can take longer than expected. Of course, this can be particularly upsetting for your parents, and delays might mean they will have to spend the first night in guest quarters.
If you want us to help with the unpacking and settling in, we can do that, too – and we are happy to do it. We can be there to be sure the movers put the furniture in the right places according to the new floor plan. We will supervise the distribution of the boxes to make sure everything goes into the designated rooms. And we’ll do the cleanup, too.
By the end of the day, the beds will be made, the coffee pot and mugs will be in place ready for the morning, the cardboard boxes will be gone, and the new place will begin to look like home.
Our custom floor plans make for a great fit
You like the floor plan at your parents’ new home, so you start to visualize what pieces of their furniture will work and start taking measurements to prepare a floor plan with graph paper. But you soon realize that visualizing the size and proportions related to room sizes is easier said than done.
You go back to the new apartment again and try to visualize furniture in the new setting and hope it will work out. So much stuff has been accumulated over the years, and you realize that much of it is not going to fit into the closets and cupboards in the new apartment.
At DunnRite Transitions, we use a computerized floor-plan application that lets us sit down with you and your parents, trying different furniture placements and arrangements, making sure everything will fit just right.
Not only will this go a long way toward setting your parents’ minds at ease, but it will also save a lot of time, confusion, and aggravation on the day the movers bring the furniture into the new place and start moving things here and there, hoping everything will fit and still look good.
Putting the house on the market
We’re not realtors, but we know how important it is to find a hard-working reputable real estate agent.
If it’s been awhile since you or your parents worked with a realtor or if you are not familiar with real estate in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area, it’s important to work with someone who knows and understands the local real estate market.
We have worked with several great realtors over the years and will be happy to recommend the best ones we know.
What about the moving trucks?
Even though we help with almost every aspect of a senior move, we are Senior Move Managers. We are not the people who pick up your furniture and other possessions and move them from one house to another.
But because we work with moving companies all the time, we are in a great position to know which moving companies are the most reliable and most cost-effective – which movers are most likely to treat your possessions with the best possible care.
Just ask us for some recommendations, and we will be glad to let you know what we think.
The DunnRite bottom line
Our rates are surprisingly affordable, and you won’t find a better, more experienced and caring team of senior move professionals than DunnRite Transitions. We will be with you every step of the way if that’s what you want, or we will be happy to just do parts of the work. It’s all your choice. Put our experience to work for you or your loved ones. We are here to help with anything and everything related to your senior move.
And on top of all that, your satisfaction is assured with our money-back guarantee.
Let us know how we can help you
We look forward to helping you or your loved one with any personal transitions.
Please call us today, at 865.717.3376, to set up an appointment for a free, no obligation in-home consultation – or send a note through our contact page. We’re located in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area.