Living in a bigger home
Three or so weeks ago, we moved. Our old apartment was a small, 40 or so square metres studio flat. The new apartment is very small too, but it has two bedrooms and a balcony. We wanted to move to Valby in Copenhagen because Frederiksberg was very expensive, and our home was too close to a large and busy road. Our new place is close to Frederiksberg (where my partner's child, father and stepmother live), but in a less busy neighbourhood. Another reason for moving was us wanting to have at least one bedroom. When my partner's child stays with us, it feels nice to have some privacy and extra space for her. We try to work from home as much as possible, and having a bedroom separate from the rest of our space is good for meetings. At times, we have guests too, and they stay in the spare bedroom.
I was wondering what moving to a larger and more permanent home would mean for my practice of extreme minimalism and our common practice of minimalism. Would more space invite more objects? Would we buy new things for the apartment?
We didn't bring everything into the new apartment that we lived with. Our new home is on the top floor, where an attic used to be before the housing company turned this space into a flat 3 or so years ago. This means that our ceiling has interesting and irregular shapes. We decided not to have a bed frame in our bedroom and simply put the mattress on the floor. For many years, I used to live without a bed and I enjoyed it very much. It felt wonderful to return to sleeping on the floor, and this floor bed fits much better into the space with irregular ceiling. It feels cosy, like a nest. We didn't bring our tøjstativ into this space either, as there is built-in storage in this apartment.
I brought home several stones from the beach in Amager. I use stones as decorations, the only decoration we have at home. At times, I return them to nature.
My partner's father and stepmother were among our first guests in our new home, and they gave us an orchid as a gift. She now lives with us. We bought a mint plant and a clay pot for her. She lives on our balcony.
There are some objects that I gave away. They include my copies of our co-authored book. It's very common for publishers to send some copies to the authors. I decided not to keep any and gave them away via our local byttestation because I wanted to give them outside academia, to our community. The electronic version of the book is open access, but some fellow humans prefer to read physical books. Recently, a fellow human visited me, and I gave her an upcycled jar with snacks as she was travelling all the way to Finland by trains and ferry. I've been using glass jars (that came with food like honey, jam and coconut oil) for snacks for many years. It's such a wonderful practice, which I hope fellow humans will adopt. I know many fellow humans who are already doing it.
Moving to our new home allowed me to be present with everything we live with and organise some objects. We have many simple cotton bags at home, made from organic cotton. We use them for fruit, other food and storing small objects such as medicine and small accessories and toys that belong to my partner's child. I decided to try and use one as an everyday handbag. I've been using cotton tote bags for some years instead of handbags (which I don't own), but small fruit bags seem even more casual and down to earth. Around me, I observe that so often handbags are used as a status symbol. Using a fruit bag as a handbag also communicates something (simplicity, sustainability, affordability and so on).
We bought a large amount of baking soda which I use for cleaning and removing stains from clothes. It was packaged in paper. Knowing that we will stay in this home for a while made me feel more comfortable about buying such items in larger quantities.