Hi friends! How are you?! Ready for the second part of our home tour? There are only three parts by the way. Well, unless you count the video tour– in which case, there are four parts to this tiny home tour πŸ™‚ I feel like I should have a disclaimer– warning: our home is pretty simple. It really is. We love this space, but there’s not a lot to it. Just a few beautiful walls, a few beautiful things, and some functional furniture. Oh, and a lot of fruit. But not much more. But we like it a lot. We’re truly happy here.
I mean, I’d rather be in Mexico, but if I have to be here, then I’m for comfortable and content in our apartment πŸ™‚

This is our entryway, kitchen, and dining room all in one photo.

The door was originally this hideous brown color, but the pink paint helped a bit. You’ll see our kitchen closer up in other photos– we don’t love the aesthetic of it. The layout is fine, the cabinetry and counters are whatever, Β but it’s functional so it works.

Typical counter set up. I’m not sure if these counters were intended for hightop stools, but we just have stacks of fruit and root vegetables lined up. Alex and I have discussed refrigeration a few times– how we could live without it. But a fridge is a standard item in a home in a US and ours came with the apartment. And so we use it.

Our dining room set up.

Again, our place is small. There was this open cubby space in the wall here when we moved in. I’m not sure what it was intended for. I think it was more structural than anything. But as soon as we moved in I knew I wanted some shelves in here. And so Alex built shelves. (It’s so nice being married to someone handy). But he didn’tΒ love the shelves. So he built new shelves. And these are even better. It worked out.

On the shelves: I mostly have books. A decorative basket and vase. A plant. Cloth napkins. And when we run out of counter space, fruit goes here too. Sometimes that bottom shelf turns into a catch-all too. School stuff, projects I’m working on, a laptop, whatever.

You guys know we had a ton of books in our home. This was a hard one to downsize. I kept books I hadn’t got to reading yet, a few favorites, and some I could reference if needed. The rest left.


Our kitchen.

Like our old home kitchen, we’d love new cabinets and counters, we have zero plans to make this happen. This space is functional. Maybe at some point, I’ll tile the backsplash, but we’ll see.

We didn’t want too many *things* in our space, but some items like these paloma’s still made it from our home to our condo. Could we live without them? Absolutely. But for now, we enjoy having sentimental decorative pieces here and there. The little wicker basket holds our salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, and a tiny spice grinder. We also have our cooking utensils here and teas that I’m adding into my regimen for detoxing. Once I test out a tea and I know my body reacts well to it, then it goes up into the tea shelf.

We can’t seem to part with our spice + tea shelf.
Coffee station vibes.

Entryway.

ImmediatelyΒ after you walk in there are some hooks/knobs on the left wall. Things I might need– an extra layer, a hat and produce bag, a towel (beach/sauna vibes), and my purse.

Marlowe art. I love this guy. Alex has mentioned hanging more art on this wall, but I don’t know. I sort of really like this open wall with one tiger, hanging out in the clouds by a massive volcano. Ya know?

I found this stool-like thing in Guatemala. And I’m just so in love with it. I want it to be part of my life forever.

Shelves and storage.

Our light fixture is some sort of basket we found. Wooden masks from central America. Table runner from Chichicastenango. Copper plates from Nepal. And I’m a nerd, but I’m excited every time I look at the bookshelf– I got a handful of new books that I cant wait to read. Check out my book recommendations HERE.

Return to the Brain of Eden (next on my list! yay!)
Soil Not Oil
Earth Democracy
Edenbound
The Journey Home
Spiritual Midwifery
Concina y Yoga
Self Healing Crohns and Colitis
Plants Are Like People
Forager
Plantopedia


My best friends.

Our living room.

We didn’t plan for all the rooms to color coordinate, but they did. And I’m obviously not bummed about it. It makes me so happy to peek into Marlowe’s room every day. Ps. Alex and I put together a video tour without Marlowe. I thought she wouldn’t be into it. But I guess she was bummed that she wasn’t included in the tour. (Aw). So maybe we’ll do another tour at some point with her πŸ™‚ Β She can show you guys her favorite things, books, art, whatever πŸ™‚

Our couch. Aka where I’m sitting right now. Β Little trinkets of art from South and Central America. And some pillows I made πŸ™‚

I like our living room space. It’s simple, clean, pretty, and highly functional. Alex says our wall is a bit barren, but I think it’s fine. If he wants to add more, he can.

Our nesting table set up was an accident, but I like it a lot. We had the cement table as a side table in our bedroom and the wood one was in the living room.


Across the couch is our music set up.

We have loads of records, a record player, a wifi music player, and whatever is inside those bins. Maybe incense? Candles? No idea. There’s not much. We’re finding that we have more storage than things for sure.

Our cushion chair set up. You guys might remember we bought a broken chair from Final Cut. We had hopes of fixing it up and using it. It was beautiful. But it just didn’t last. We tried our best. Now we just have an old camel bag filled with a giant pillow and some woven poufs.
We had so many plants in our old house. Now, this is our main plant. We have our glass print photos from our travels.

We bought this plant from our home and it’s so happy here. The macrame planter was made by local artists. I love it so much. All the rope. All the textiles.


Looking south.

It’s hard to photograph our space, especially facing south. We only have windows on one side of the apartment. It’s not a great photo, but I think it helps get an extra idea of the space. I think the video will maybe help with that too.

We don’t have much on our balcony. I’d like to have planters on the side (you wouldn’t be able to see them from this angle). And we have our two compost bins out there. Lounge furniture would be cool, but I think it would make our indoor space feel more cluttered? I’m not sure. Honestly, I’m not worried about it.

I think you can tell I’m pretty lax about the entire space, haha. I just wanted to move into a smaller space that we could worry less about, and this apartment certainly fits that πŸ™‚ We actually imagined the space smaller than it it. It seemed that way until we put our furniture in here. And now it feels rather large.

I forget what the exact number is, but I had read somewhere, at some point, that at least 40% of most people’s homes in the US. goes unused. As a whole, Americans only make up 5% of the world’s population, yet we use up 25% of the world’s energy. That’s huge. And sadly, really not that surprising. The reality is, most of us could do with A LOT less than what we have. I know we certainly could, even after downsizing. Either way, we’re really happy with our choice to downsize. It’s just so emotionally and physically time-freeing πŸ™‚

Before I get to the source list, I want to remind you guys there’s not a lot of things to link for this post. Just some of the bigger furniture. All the little aesthetic pieces have mostly been collected while abroad πŸ™‚

Kitchen Sources:

water filter
knife rack

Living / Dining Room Sources

couch
dining table
dining chairs
record shelf
printed glass frames
round wicker stools
floor lamp
cement table
wooden table
macrame plant hanger
paint: main dusty pink wall
the lighter pink wall is actually a mix between the blush color in Marlowe’s room and the main pink wall.
and the yellow paint we had customed requested from quiet home paints. It’s not one of their standard colors. you could potentially reach out and ask them for it if you wanted a similar one πŸ™‚

 

Alright friends! I hope you enjoyed this tour! I’ll be sharing the video + our bedroom tour soon too πŸ™‚ And if you thought this space was simple– but wait for our bedroom. It’s truly minimalistic.

I hope you guys are well in the world, wherever you are πŸ™‚ I’ve been good. I deleted instagram this week– I’ve been doing this over the weekends to just unplug. Except for the fact that I cant get back in this time– haha. I’m not sad about it. I’ll figure it out over the next day or two I’m sure πŸ™‚ Either way, it’s been really nice. I suggest trying it out if you haven’t πŸ™‚ Cheers friends!

5 Comments

  1. i love everything about this – especially color choices! really a dreamy space. i finally moved into an apartment after a sabbatical year and i’m so much happier because of how small it is compared to my in laws where we were staying for a while. i think that was the biggest lesson from my time off – i live much happier with less and also, just do it – whatever dreams, plans and ideas i have aren’t going to happen unless i put in the work: https://tps-steph.blogspot.com/2019/10/0047-just-do-it.html
    i feel the same way about space – i used to love hgtv and now it’s just a upsetting, people think success and happiness are linked to more

  2. i love everything about this – especially color choices! really a dreamy space. i finally moved into an apartment after a sabbatical year and i’m so much happier because of how small it is compared to my in laws where we were staying for a while. i think that was the biggest lesson from my time off – i live much happier with less and also, just do it – whatever dreams, plans and ideas i have aren’t going to happen unless i put in the work: https://tps-steph.blogspot.com/2019/10/0047-just-do-it.html
    i feel the same way about space – i used to love hgtv and now it’s just a upsetting, people think success and happiness are linked to more but in the end you just keep chasing and wanting more, more, more

  3. I love your new space! It’s really cute πŸ™‚ I 100% agree with you about people having too much space. My oldest daughter is moving into a 6 bedroom house sometime next year and while I adore her, it just seems like too much, you know. She didn’t get that from me, lol. I like to live in a small, minimalist open floorplan space. I don’t believe in having more than what you need. I really like what you’ve done with your place! It’s lovely πŸ™‚

    – Laurali Star

    https://www.everydaylauralistar.com

    • Thank you!!

      And oh man, that makes me think about Marlowe. So many people have jokingly said Marlowe is going to pull a 180 on me and go meat-eating consumer haha– and I’m like “we’llllllll seeeeee.” We have to let them be who they want to be too πŸ™‚

      • Yup, that’s already happening to me. My youngest daughter Chloe moved out last year, and she’s talking about becoming a meat eater again. She made the choice to become a vegetarian when she was like 10 years old and I can’t help but be heart sick over it. She hasn’t made the switch yet, so I’m hoping that all my old teachings will kick in and she’ll stick with vegetarianism. It’s scary, isn’t it?