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> My current bedroom is ... Yawn. This isn't living in 80 square feet. This is bedrooming in 80 square feet. There's a gigantic difference. There's no mentio
by BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
> My current bedroom is ...
Yawn.
This isn't living in 80 square feet. This is bedrooming in 80 square feet. There's a gigantic difference.
There's no mention of cooking, bathroom, or other shared space. Congratulations, you actually live in a much larger space than you admit.
My first apartment in Paris was ~118 square feet (11m2), but that was INCLUDING a kitchenette, an enclosed bathroom (toilet, shower, and second sink), and an inward slanting wall (it was inside the building roof) which eliminated maybe a good fifth of the volume, and also no closet.
And I lived there with my partner, so there were two people sharing that space, with two peoples' worth of clothing and coats and computers and other materials and dishes and pots and pans and luggage, and two peoples' worth of constantly being in someone else's way.
And only that last detail, the constant interminable contact with another person, was difficult.
But an 8x10 bedroom for one? So?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoAdding more... "Don't be a slob", "Don't accumulate shit", and "Don't be stupid with your space" are just so obnoxiously obvious as to be entirely unhelpful suggestions for anyone with half a brain cell. And "Don't bother putting things away" is a clear sign to me that this person doesn't know what small is, because when you live in an actually small space, putting things away neatly improves your mental state significantly. You will notice your improved condition when you have that extra few feet of floor, desk, and shelf space. Real functional advice would be things like "You'd be surprised at how much space you can save by replacing certain bulky items with compact travel/camping equivalents." Get rid of big fluffy bath towels that take forever to dry, and get small linen ones instead ( We have a few of these, and now I'd never buy anything else regardless of available space https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ ). The same goes for comforters and winter coats that you're going to want to stow in the summer, bags, dishes, and so forth.
- barbs 9y agoIs your arrogant and condescending tone really necessary here?
- traverseda 9y agoI don't really see the issue. This is well withon the bounds of acceptable and coaching the key points in more passive language would just make it longer with very little upside. I mean, in other communities it would be a good thing. But I'd prefer to keep that kind of tone-policing away from HN and focus on content.
- Retric 9y agoNeutral tone tends to take up less space consider the same content but: "Don't be a slob", "Don't accumulate shit", and "Don't be stupid with your space" are obvious and therefore unhelpful. You will notice your improved condition when you have that extra few feet of floor space so do Put things away. Useful advice is more inline with: "Replace bulky items with compact travel/camping equivalents." "small linen towels instead of big fluffy bath ones that take forever to dry" (I'd never buy anything else https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WBC17N4/) Also, things you want to store over summer like comforters and winter coats along with, bags, dishes, and so forth.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoDifferent strokes, I guess. Want edit access to my account?
- bitJericho 9y agoIt's also boring. Part of being a good writer is being not boring.
- 8draco8 9y agoIn Europe full featured apartments under 20m2 (~215 square feet) are pretty standard. I personally know quite a few people that are living in such apartments with kids. 11m2 sounds like standard European bedroom in apartment.
- ido 9y agoI lived in Vienna for 8 years and Berlin for 3.5 and have never seen an apartment this small.
- rhblake 9y agoPlenty of them in Stockholm and Paris. I once shared a 20m^2 flat with my partner; it worked alright. Just can't accumulate a lot of stuff. To give you an idea, here are some for sale in Stockholm county right now: https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?location_ids%5B%5D=17744&item_types%5B%5D=bostadsratt&rooms_min=1&rooms_max=1&living_area_max=20 https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?location_ids%5B%5D=17744&item... Here's a 9.5m^2 (!) apartment for sale (including bed, work area, tiny kitchen, toilet, shower), although it's marketed as something in the middle between hotel room and apartment (that's one way to put it, I guess): http://www.bjurfors.se/sv/tillsalu/stockholm/stockholm/bromma-ulvsunda/voltavagen-45/ http://www.bjurfors.se/sv/tillsalu/stockholm/stockholm/bromm...
- tobltobs 9y agoOn the hemnet link, if you sarch for less then 20qm it finds 12. If you search eg. for 30-40qm it finds more then 600. Doesn't look like <20qm would be some kind of standard.
- rhblake 9y agoFor sure they're not standard, I just replied to "never seen an apartment this small" and wanted to point out that in some cities they're not unusual. Another example - Paris, 87 ads for condos 0-20m^2 [0], 104 for 30-40m^2 [1] on pap.fr, a popular site. Similar numbers for rentals ("location"). [0] http://www.pap.fr/annonce/vente-appartements-paris-75-g439-jusqu-a-20-m2 http://www.pap.fr/annonce/vente-appartements-paris-75-g439-j... [1] http://www.pap.fr/annonce/vente-appartements-paris-75-g439-entre-30-et-40-m2 http://www.pap.fr/annonce/vente-appartements-paris-75-g439-e...
- jklinger410 9y agoI've lived in a 400sqft loft for two years with my SO. Anyone who finds this style of living romantic is either foolish or doesn't mind throwing their money at problems that can be fixed simply by adding more space. When you shrink down your living environment WITHOUT an optimally designed environment, there's nothing romantic about it. It just sucks.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoYeah. You either pay for more square feet or you pay for therapy. It's not a choice I'd willingly make again.
- cmg 9y agoI had a perfect apartment for me. It was 596 sq ft, but split over 2.5 floors - equally-sized basement (one room/laundry & utility closet) and main floor (kitchen/bathroom/living room), plus a 1/4-sized lofted bedroom above it. My partner of a few years moved in with me, and we quickly realized we had to find a new place if we were going to live together. If one person coughed in the basement, the other person could hear it in the bedroom. No amount of putting up sound-reducing barriers helped. It looks romantic from the outside, maybe cute and cozy, but day-to-day it takes a very special kind of patience to deal with. I do have friends who live in about 300 sq ft in New York City, somewhere in the East 60s. Their apartment has that exact "romantic" feel to it, but they only survive because they live in NYC and can spend the majority of their time doing things (together or separately) anywhere but their apartment.
- Dylan16807 9y agoAt a size like 400sqft it all comes down to design. That's enough space for a main room with kitchen, a plenty-roomy bath, a small bedroom, and two offices.
- leggomylibro 9y agoParis apartment bathrooms. Why did you have to bring up Paris apartment bathrooms? Of all the myriad sharp edges of actually trying to live in Paris, the apartment bathrooms are the one memory that I try to suppress. Was yours like the one that we had? With the toilet INSIDE OF the shower? Saving space is a virtue, to be sure, but I was not proud to live like that. It was so...damp.
- mikestew 9y agoWith the toilet INSIDE OF the shower? We're in the market for a new RV, and we won't even consider one with that arrangement. Even in an RV we're not that desperate for space.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoIt wasn't inside the shower. How would that even work? Where do you stand when showering? Do you mean that there's no separation between the toilet and shower? If so, then yes. But we had a corner curtain affixed to the wall to keep from splashing the toilet.
- Mediterraneo10 9y agoI once stayed at a backpackers in Hong Kong with a bathroom so cramped that the only way to use the shower was to put the toilet lid down and stand on top of the commode.
- exclusiv 9y agoI stayed at an apartment in Venice Italy and the toilet was in the middle of the shower. So you could literally poo and shower at the same time if you really wanted too haha. They also had floor urinals at some public spaces which, while odd, has the upside of being functional for women.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago> I stayed at an apartment in Venice Italy and the toilet was in the middle of the shower. So you could literally poo and shower at the same time if you really wanted too haha. That's amazing. I bet it either makes you feel really clean after or not very clean after, depending on which you're trying to do!
- lnanek2 9y agoI've been and known lots of people in NYC with no bathroom (shared, down the hall) and no kitchen (they just eat out every night, or worst case grab some chicken cutlets from a deli on the way home from work). So those things missing isn't really indicative.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago> no bathroom (shared You mean shared bathroom. > no kitchen I'm going to assume that you mean either a shared kitchen or a kitchenette because of your mistake about the bathroom. Sharing something doesn't mean you don't have it.
- Dylan16807 9y agoIt means you don't have it in your apartment.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoIt means you don't have it in your bedroom. Because having something is not the same thing as not having something, and it doesn't matter if that thing is shared with a small collective or isn't directly attached. It means that when you live in an environment with shared bathrooms, then your notion of "living in" is wrong if you don't include them. There is an important difference between "I live in" and "I sleep in".
- Dylan16807 9y ago> My first apartment in Paris was ~118 square feet (11m2), but that was INCLUDING a kitchenette, an enclosed bathroom (toilet, shower, and second sink), and an inward slanting wall (it was inside the building roof) which eliminated maybe a good fifth of the volume, and also no closet. > But an 8x10 bedroom for one? So? It sounds like you're describing your main room as similar or even larger than 80 square feet, so I don't see how your story is supposed to trounce theirs. They might have access to a shared space but if they don't use it then it doesn't really matter. The hard part, as you said, is sharing that small an area with someone else the entire day. Which is a separate issue from whether the shared room is 50 square feet or 150 square feet.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago> It sounds like you're describing your main room as... Oh dear, "main room". Which room was the not-main room? > They might have access to a shared space but if they don't use it then it doesn't really matter. So you're saying they never go to the bathroom, shower, or eat. Sure thing, boss. Let me ask you a question. If you and your partner share a car, do you have a car or do you not have a car? If your partner is always the one who drives whenever you go somewhere, does that change your answer? Shared space isn't magically gone just because it's shared. > The hard part, as you said, is sharing that small an area with someone else the entire day. Which is a separate issue from whether the shared room is 50 square feet or 150 square feet. That means that fitting even two peoples' worth of belongings is not the hard part. That means the author is being entirely self-aggrandizing with intent to deceive. That means "BFD".
- Dylan16807 9y ago> Which room was the not-main room? The bathroom. I should have said main room(s), but with you emphasizing the smallness and highlighting the bathroom as enclosed I assumed there was only one. > So you're saying they never go to the bathroom, shower, or eat. You have deeply misunderstood me. I'm saying that when it comes to calculating space to compare to the article, what matters is how many square feet are dedicated to the place(s) where you put the bed and the desk. Did you have less than 80 square feet dedicated to that? Because when you describe a 118sqft apartment with bathroom, it sounds like after subtracting the bathroom you actually had more space than the article's 80sqft. So why are you bored at how large the article's space is in comparison to your own experience? > Shared space isn't magically gone just because it's shared. Of course. I'm suggesting that he is not using any shared space outside of the bathroom. And a bathroom easily fits in less than 38sqft.