What fits in a senior apartment

The room is smaller than the house, the move usually happens faster than anyone planned, and the floor plan is the only honest guide to what goes. Get that first. The rest of the house is a separate job and it can wait a few weeks.

Ask for the floor plan and the rule sheet

The move-in coordinator has both, and the rule sheet is real. It varies by building: no candles, no space heaters, no extension cords under rugs, sometimes nothing hung with nails. Ask what's already in the room, too, because a lot of places supply the fridge and the microwave and you don't need a second one.

While you have them on the phone, ask about the door width, the elevator size and whether there's a service entrance. A recliner that won't fit through the bathroom door is a recliner that lives in the hallway.

Measure these before the truck is booked

Take the tape measure to the actual furniture at home, not to the catalog numbers.

• The room's wall lengths, corner to corner
• Width of the entry door and the elevator opening
• Depth from the wall to the foot of the bed
• Closet depth and how high the rod sits
• Where the outlets, the phone jack and the heat sit

Take the chair they actually sit in

The regret I hear about most is the good recliner left behind while a formal living room set made the trip. Take the chair with the worn arms. Take the bed they sleep well in. Take the lamp that's been beside it for thirty years.

A dining table and six chairs will not fit, and they shouldn't try. Offer it to family first, then sell or donate it. Don't rent a storage unit for the maybe-one-day room, because that unit turns into a monthly bill for furniture nobody will ever want.

Pack the small things before any furniture moves

Medications in their original bottles, glasses, hearing aids and the batteries for them, the phone and the charger that goes with it, ID and insurance cards, the address book, a few framed photos off the wall.

That box rides with you in the car, not on the truck. Label it and put it in the room on move-in day, because the first night is exactly when somebody needs their own things and can't find them in a stack of boxes.

Let the house stay a separate job

It's tempting to sort the whole house in the same week. Don't. Take what goes to the room, mark what family is taking, and leave the rest where it sits. A house cleanout run at the same time as a move is how people throw out the wrong box at eleven at night.

Set a date for the house at least a couple of weeks after move-in. By then the room is settled, you know what actually fits, and the second trip to the house is a lot calmer than the first.

Ask the staff what residents actually use

The activities director and the aides have watched a hundred of these moves. Ask what sits unused in rooms and what people ask for a week in. It's usually a comfortable chair, a reading lamp, a small table beside it, and a clock they can read from the bed. Ask about labeling clothes, too, because the laundry room eats cardigans.

The thing people get wrong is bringing the whole bedroom set and then having nowhere to walk. Bring less furniture than you think and more of the small things that make the room theirs. A chair, a lamp and their own blanket settle a person faster than a matched suite.