(ENG only) If you’ve read my latest post that you probably now by now that I have recently moved into a small 30sqm studio apartment on my own. The choice had to be a natural consequence of events that I have more or less explained in this video. Whilst adjusting to a new chapter of my life in my studio, I want to share a little tour of the apartment I have lived in for almost two years and I’ve just moved out of.

The apartment was roughly 55sqm (which is 592 sqf) and consisted of bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen, entrance way/hallway and a small storage room.
There were windows on both sides of the apartment, so it was very bright and luminous, not hot in the summer and not super cold in winter.
Since me and my ex-partner were and are still planning to stay in Berlin long term, we did our best to make this apartment feel like a home, without necessarily buying lots of furniture, knick knacks or decor pieces. We kept things fairly simple but still made the place interesting and inviting. We also made our best to find eco friendly alternatives to apartment furnishing and decorating, for example such as buying second hand or making a few decor pieces ourselves. For me, regardless of where you live, home is not a storage space or warehouse: home is home and should feel like a welcoming place, both for whoever lives there and for guests.

Now I’m going to break it all down to you and give you a glimpse into each one of the rooms.

Minimalist apartment tour – simple living in 55sqm in Berlin, Germany

Entrance way/hallway

The hallway was actually quite roomy and gave a sense of space and freedom. Despite the space availability, we kept it almost completely furniture free. We hung a small coat rack (from Ikea) on the wall, placed a little shelf/shoe rack that we found for free on Ebay and a thrifted basket that we used for produce that didn’t need to be stored in the fridge, such as potatoes and onions.
This was the only place we were able to put our drying rack on laundry days without always having it on the way.

Bathroom

The bathroom was the first room on the right side near the front door. It was pretty narrow and didn’t allow much space for “furniture” so aside from a top load washing machine (bought new when we moved in here) and our laundry hamper (got second hand for free) we didn’t have much else. We kept our few shower products directly in the shower, used the built-in shelf to store our toiletries bags with the daily essentials and hung our towels directly on the radiator. On the washing machine we used an Ikea soft basket to store medicines and the rest of our bathroom stuff.

Kitchen

Considering that the kitchen wasn’t particularly big as well, when we moved in here we knew that we didn’t want to commit to a traditional kitchen with cabinets. So we managed to keep everything on open shelves. We did cook a lot at home so we had various utensils as well as different foods (I eat a plant based diet and my ex-partner didn’t, so couldn’t always cook the exact same things). The little blue-ish cart is from Ikea (had searched for one second hand on eBay but never managed to get one, they always went away so quickly!) and the three open shelves are all second hand. The chairs + cushions and the folding table are from Ikea. Fridge is second hand too and the microwave was replaced just a few months before moving out (our old second hand one that we got for free broke last December). The small shelves for spices are also from Ikea (I wish we didn’t buy that much stuff from Ikea, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do). Sink and stove came with the apartment.
Note: we furnished the kitchen this way much before it was even in our plans to adopt a cat. Things have more or less worked even after she came to live with us.

Bedroom

Of the bedroom you might have gotten a glimpse from my Youtube videos. Anyway it was right after the kitchen, on also on the right side of the apartment. None of us liked the idea of a big bulky wardrobe (I live out of a clothing rack a few drawers since years), so each of us had a clothing rack (both from Ikea, mine is actually over 5 years old) and a little dresser (both got second hand for free years ago). The bed is from Ikea with drawers underneath for storage (blankets, extra bedding, towels and seasonal clothes), unfortunately our old DIY bed made out of pallets wasn’t a solution here. The only additional items were our trusty nightstands that were handmade by D. out of two beer cases.

Living room

This room was my favorite of all and was the room were we hung out the most. It was the biggest and the only one of the apartment that was on the left side of it, and it had so much natural daylight even on days when it wasn’t that sunny at all. This is were we expressed ourselves and our personalities the most: we put lots of pictures on the wall that could tell some of our story and favorite moments with those we love (one of my favorite things of the entire apartment was the DIY little gallery wall that we made using a piece of wood, some thread, some wooden clips and polaroid sized pictures). We also had some wall art (I actually painted the flamingo myself when I attended a night art event), a bookshelf with various books, records (the cat unfortunately broke the record player by consistently using it as a landing surface for her jumps ) etc. . We used to have sooooooo many plants in this very room, D. was a very happy and proud plant keeper. The day before picking up Ziggy however, we found out that the majority of the plants we had in our apartment were considered toxic and dangerous for cats. We gave them all away for free and weren’t able to built a plant collection ever since. We kept the center of the room completely free, so we had freedom of movement (this room literally turned into our “gym” during lockdowns) and didn’t have to feel the burden of too much stuff and too much furniture. We got rid of our couch when we moved here and replaced it with two armchairs instead and an ottoman that we could also use as additional sitting or small table when needed. In the corner by the window instead we had put table and chairs, that we could use whenever we needed to work on our laptops (this table was my desk during my 3 months of home office last year) but also a dining table when we had friends coming over.
Except for the small cupboard by the window were D. kept some of his stuff, everything in this room is second hand.

Bonus: small storage closet

The apartment came with a cool bonus: a small storage room. Whenever we didn’t have a place for something and we wanted it to be sort of hidden or our of the way (such as our recycling bins, cat stuff, D.’s bike stuff, cleaning supplies, etc. ), this is were we’ve put it. It was very practical as we were able to keep the rest of the house clutter free from all of those items that are useful but not exactly pretty to look at every day when you walk in, such as the broom or cat litter.

Minimalist apartment tour

And this was it for my simple 55sqm apartment tour in Berlin. My time here lasted just a little less than two years and I really loved living here. I hope you have enjoyed this tour and let me know what you think of the space! Or if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below!
For a further glimpse into this apartment, make sure to check out this video:

Thank you so much for joining this apartment tour! I’ll talk to you soon!

Jen