In The Right Place

When I moved back in into our apartment after the staycation at my parent's place, I found a companion in my bed, awaiting me with a smile.
I don't know how put him there: our cleaning lady or Mr Paula? I like both imaginings, someone I know tucks the rabbit under the blanket. Whoever it was, he/she knows how to brighten up my mood. It are the moments like this one, when I fold back the cover and finde the rabbit waiting for me when I know that I am in the right place, surrounded by the people who read me.

Apropos reading: we still did not put a "Keine Werbung" (=No promotional brochures/folders) at our door so we collect all kinds of promotions hanging at our door handle every day. One day always used to be a special day: the day the IKEA catalogue arrived.
IKEA did change over the years and unfortunately it did not hop on the bandwagon of de-cluttering or be it simple simplifying. Instead it provides tons of ideas how to stuff more stuff in your limited space.

In my eyes all these pages give me mere horror.

All those photos show ideal living rooms. OMG! Get me out of of there!
The manager's words don't save the damage IKEA has done, no, it makes it even worse by promising that with IKEA's help, you will be able to fill every niche and corner, however small, with a storage-solution.

Next to the new IKEA concept (well, new - it has been around for a few years) comes to whole Selfstorage-hype. Both leave me with unease.

I will post a few photos I've taken around my apartment to give you an idea what I fancy:

There used to be a time, when IKEA's designers came up with series like the IKEA PS and 365+ which never let you down. Why didn't they evolve a whole philosophy around the series?

Where there's room, there remains room

Where there are walls, you won't find shelves

My MIL said it is waste of space when we spread out the HIFI on the top of a chest of drawers, 220cm wide. Maybe it is waste to others but not to us, since there is no need to keep the space for anything else - there is nothing around that would need the space the HIFI takes up.

Where there are groceries, you won't find them in a mess of piles and heaps but in order:

Where there are groceries, you will find them in orderYou will never find a rack in my shower. A neat box suffices. Please excuse the state of the chair, it was the first thing I did on my own, painting the chair red.
I plan on repainting it, white maybe. Eddie Ross provides the best inspirations for this project.

One drawer is enough for all place mats and dish towels.

Since we don't need the room for stuff, we have room for silly stuff like waste paper

Before I moved in, I always lived in places where I could not find a single wall that would be free from the ceiling down to the floor where I could lean against to strech my calves after a workout.It are walls like this that I value as a huge achievement.

I have been living in the same apartment for more than 15 years. I guesss I am a bit proud of the fact that you still find walls going down to the floor and that I did not give in to consumerism and did not search for every possible ways how to clutter up every corner of this apartment with the perfect storage item IKEA provides (three-dimensional of course, floors, walls, ceilings). Instead I constantly kept reducing everything to the max. Mr Paula earns a big credit here, since he is the other half who supports this reduced lifestyle on mere 613 sqft.