A smaller home can hold a life more comfortably when the belongings finally fit the days being lived.

Space feels tight when it is holding a life you are no longer living. The equipment for the hobby you left behind, the clothes for the job you had, the furniture bought for a household of five: none of it is doing anything except making the rooms smaller. Once what remains matches the actual week, a smaller place stops feeling like a reduction. The problem was rarely the square footage.

Go through one room and ask of each large thing when it was last used and for what. Let some of it go to people who will use it. Judge the space afterwards rather than before.