Bettina Deda - Downsize With Style: A 5-Step Process to Create a Happy Home and Refine Your New Lifestyle

BETTINA DEDA

A 5-Step Process to Create a
Happy Home and Refine Your New Lifestyle

Copyright 2014 by Bettina Deda

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Deda, Bettina

First Printing, 2014
Downsize with Style

ISBN 978-0-9924013-0-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-0-9924013-1-3 (ebk)

Printed in Australia

Designer: Sanela Hromadzic

Illustrator: Joaqun Gonzalez Dorao

My name is Lorraine Cox and I feel very honoured to be asked to write the foreword to this exciting and insightful book Downsize with Style .

I am a downsizing and removal consultant, specialising in helping people when they are moving from the family home into beautiful retirement and lifestyle resorts.

Having owned and run a successful business called Downsizing With Ease for over ten years, and before that run a removal company, Ryde Furniture Freighters, for ten years, I have seen hundreds of people downsize from the family home. Those two businesses now work hand in hand helping people to downsize and move with as minimal an amount of stress as possible.

I met Bettina through a womens business group we were both involved in, and we found we had much in common, particularly in wanting to help people when they had decided to downsize to smaller homes. Like many people (especially women!), who are passionate about what they do, there is always much to talk about and not a lot a room to stop for a breath.

One of the times we met to discuss this book Bettina had her young son with her. I had sponsored Max a few weeks before in a fundraising event, A Week Without Words. He and his friends were raising money to help a local school that assists children with additional needs, and their quest was to stay silent for eight hours, which was an amazing feat. I was happy to sponsor this thoughtful young man.

After I left our meeting that day, I had to laugh, as I thought, this poor child was totally silent during our entire meeting as he could not get a word in edgeways between these two passionate women and their talk of downsizing. It would have been an easy way for him to make a few more dollars for his charity, without even trying!

Even though we could be seen as competitors in the field of downsizing myself from the area of assisting with the moving process, and making the move as stress-free as possible, and Bettina from the area of helping her clients enjoy the process of downsizing and making their new home, although smaller, stylish and beautiful to move in to I think we complement each other perfectly.

Bettinas philosophy of life is one of gratitude, which sits very comfortably with my values and how I try to live my own life. I loved reading about how she came to those beliefs.

When her clients decide to downsize, she works with them to make this transition the joyful and happy experience it should be.

Bettinas book has hit the nail on the (decorating) head, so to speak. Downsizing to an apartment does not mean downsizing on style, and her knowledge of colour and making small spaces work is exciting.

We see many people downsize when sometimes their heart is really not in it, but with the practical and emotional help that Bettina offers, this transition can be made so much easier.

On the other hand, there are the people who are so excited at the thought of getting rid of their large home and having a small home to maintain that will fit in with their busy lifestyles. They may not have the attachment to their goods, like some people, but they still want to have a stylish and practical smaller home to live in. Bettinas book, and help, can only add to that excitement.

The detail she goes into with her ideas of starting to de-clutter makes me want to run and look through my cupboards and start doing some de-cluttering of my own. I can picture it as I read her steps to take, and she makes it seem easy, even fun!

While giving practical advice, Bettina also captures the emotion that goes with getting rid off much loved items. She tackles that emotional side with grace and style, very much like herself.

I may have been helping people move for almost 20 years, and I thought I had a lot of the answers to help my clients trying to downsize, but I think I had only just touched the tip of the iceberg with many of my ideas.

Downsize with Style has opened my eyes to many other solutions that will enable me to help my clients, and I think this book will become my second bible when helping them through the process of making that move into a retirement and lifestyle village.

I wish Bettina every success with her book Downsize with Style because it is clear that it is written with a lot of love and passion, which comes from her very grateful heart.

Lorraine Cox
Owner/Director
Downsizing With Ease

I would like to start this book with two things that are very important to me: beauty and gratitude. Ever since I was a child I loved to surround myself with beautiful things. I remember collecting beautiful shells and stones while on holidays with my parents. In my teens I loved beautiful vibrant colours, handbags and shoes (of course!). When I moved into my first tiny apartment I started buying beautiful homewares to decorate my place. I always was drawn to beautiful art, and started painting in 2005. I need beauty around me on a daily basis. I need it to work, to be creative and to feel good. It makes me happy when I come in my bathroom in the morning and see a beautiful flower standing on my windowsill. I love my beautiful feather collection, my artworks and inspirational pictures on a mood board in my office, or the breathtaking nature on Sydneys Northern Beaches.

Only in 2012, after reading the book Inspiring Courageous Leaders by Mandy Holloway, did I find out that beauty is one of my top three values. This gave me clarity as to why beauty has always been, and is still, so important for me. And it is not only important on a personal level: it drives my business every day.

The other important thing I would like to share with you, is gratitude. Gratitude is the second of my top values. I believe gratitude is one of the most important pillars of joy (by the way, The Gospel of Joy is a great book by Amanda Gore). I was taught to say thank you and being grateful by my parents and grandmother. I remember my grandmother talking about how she survived two World Wars in Germany, the second with five little children to feed when there was no food available. She once said to me that she hopes that I never have to go through this experience, and that I should be very grateful to live in a part of the world where people dont have to suffer from a war being waged in their own country. This is something I will never forget.

I practise gratitude every day. A good way to do it, is a gratitude journal. Write down every night what you have been grateful for on that day. This is a great way to reflect on your day. I also teach my boys to be grateful for what they have experienced during their day, even if negative things happened to them. I believe that you should be grateful for anything that happens to you, as nothing happens without a reason.