Room Tour

Two years ago, I did a room tour. Or actually, two room tours. Back then, I still lived with my parents and they are divorced, so that’s why I did two room tours. In their houses, I had one room for myself, a bedroom. In the meantime, I have moved to Groningen and then again to Amsterdam, where I live now. And so, it’s time to do a new room tour, to show you how minimalistic (or not) I live these days. I’m excited to show you!

Minimalism

I aspire to live as minimalistic as I can. As a consequence, I keep on evaluating the things that I still own. Do I still need them? Or do they serve no purpose at all? I personally feel like that’s going very well. My room is always very tidy, since all my belongings have their own, set spot. Here and there are some things that I want to improve or do, and I’ll tell you about those in a minute, but overall I’d say I’m very content with my room. I love living here and I really made it my own.

My interior is also highly sustainable, since it’s 99% secondhand. There are only two items in this room tour that I bought new myself, together with the pink paint on the wall. Next to those, there are two additional things that are new, but those were gifts. For simplicity, I am only going to name the things that are new, all the rest is secondhand, just so you know that.

Wall number One

Two items in this picture I took over from the previous owner, the bed and the shelve on the wall. Very convenient since I did not have to buy and move those things! In this picture you see three things that are new, two were gifts from my mother and one I bought myself. The gifts are the painting of our dog Darco on the shelve and the letterboard next to it as well. The only item that I bought new myself is the mattress on the bed. It did not feel comfortable to buy a secondhand mattress. This one is from IKEA which is not a sustainable brand. There is one circular and sustainable mattress, the Evolve by Auping, but it was around 2000 euros and I did want to spend that on a mattress. Maybe I will in the future.

Wall number Two

All the things (aside from the mattress I just mentioned) in this picture are secondhand. But there is one exception here, which are some pictures on the message boards, but I do not see that as actual stuff. The most special secondhand purchase in this picture is my electric piano. I drove about 4 hours to pick it up and paid 350 euros for it. It’s the most expensive secondhand item I ever bought. What I love about my room is that my bed is in the corner. It gives an extremely cosy feeling when I’m in it, like I’m in my own little space.

Wall number Three

On the fridge (which I took over from the previous owner, along with the thingy where the plant hangs and the floor) you see a lot of food. I share a kitchen with 13 others, and we all have one small cabinet to store out food. For me, that’s not enough at all. The remaining food that I store, I store here in my own room, it’s mostly breakfast, lunch and snack stuff. The brown cabinet also has mostly food inside, for the same reason. I usually have breakfast and lunch here in my own room, but I eat dinner in the living room which I share with others. There are also some items on the brown cabinet and a plastic bag below it. These are some ‘to-do’ things. I try to keep them in sight so that I do what I wanted to do with them.

Wall number Four

The the last wall. I actually just recently re-designed my room and put things in different places. The bed used to be on this side, but I like the way it is right now much better. When I work on my computer or sit in the beige chair, I enjoy the sunlight and the green view. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that this is the best set-up. I think what is most special in this picture are the plants. Almost all my plants were adopted. It’s an item not many people buy secondhand, but it’s such a good choice. Such a sin to throw plants away when they can have a good life at another place.

The Balcony

Next is the balcony. Such a luxury that I have one. The furniture that is on it, the chairs and the tables, are from the previous owner, I took that over as well. The set is built exactly for this balcony and won’t fit elsewhere. Anyway, I think I should do better when it comes to the balcony. It needs way more green! I am actually growing new plants right now, to put them on the balcony. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to hang up plants on the red part, since there is a risk of something falling down. That’s a pity, but I can make the balcony more green in other ways too, so I hope to do so soon!

The Hall

Then there’s the hall. In the pink bag I keep other bags to take with me when I do groceries. The white cabinet is for my shoes, I keep 4 pairs in there. When you enter my room, on the right side there are three closets. I use two-thirds of that for my clothing, and the last third I use for random things. I love the size of my closet, because I cannot keep too much clothing. This forces me to be critical when buying something and that’s a good thing. I don’t like too many clothes. I love the fact that the closets are built-in, this way I did not have to buy one myself.

The Bathroom

This room tour is bigger than last time, because I also have my own bathroom now. I like to keep my bathroom simple. I don’t own a shower curtain because there’s usually PFAS in it and I don’t see the point of it either. Also, I keep a bucket in the shower to save water. I use The Good Roll toilet paper (more about that soon). In the bathroom I keep the second item that I bought new: my toilet brush. It’s made out of natural material though, no plastic. I keep one towel in the bathroom, one shelve under the mirror and then a little thing on the left on the wall. In the future I’ll give an updated version on all the cosmetics I own again. I did that in 2019 already, but I was not completely satisfied with my stash at that point. Now I am.