Space can only be properly appreciated when you live in a small Hong Kong apartment. I am talking the kind of one in which you can get out of bed and to your kitchen. First it is somewhat absurd. Then slowly you start adapting your habits in a way which you had never imagined. Find for more bonuses here!
The furniture is not the greatest change but the mindset. It is believed that the solution to it lies in buying clever storage or folding tables. That is useful, all right. But as you stop expecting your home to do everything, then is when the change comes. You change your life with some small square. Not dramatically, but just on a steady basis.
It is disorder that can be noticed very fast. Another chair? You feel it. At the door were three empty bags? The whole space all at once turns oppressive. so picky you are. Brutal, sometimes. Something that is not appropriate gets lost. That is extreme but it becomes normal in the long run.
Storage is not none, but in a different sense that most people would think of. Vertical space is now your new friend. The shelves are raised up higher. Hooks are installed on the walls, in the background of the doors and even the cabinets. You start seeing blank walls as wasted opportunities. Playing a game of Tetris with no sound whenever you introduce something in your house is almost like a silent game.
Furniture choices get… strategic. A bed that has drawers below is not witty it is necessarial. Folding chairs, folding chairs that are stackable, movable objects, clear away objects, objects you are done with. One of them calls it furniture with behavior. I recalled that.
It is also this habit that you get to have to reset your space everyday. It does not mean having a full clean but having things ready prior to going to sleep. In a larger apartment, you can afford not to clean up. Here, you can wake up and you are aware of what has taken place on yesterday. And it is a weird kind of stimulus.
Light has a bigger contribution than thought. It will be the natural light that will make the small spot twice habitable. People keep the curtains to the minimum or select the light colours. Mirrors are useful, but not magic. What the space feels like as compared to deceiving your eyes is more.
And then there is the outside world. Living comfortably in a small Hong Kong apartment can never imply that your living room has to be placed on your wall. Cafes are transformed into work stations. Parks are turned to relaxation zones. You no longer consider your apartment as the entirety of your life, and it takes a certain burden off of you.
Mini storage units are used as a buffer by other individuals. Not to keep random junk, but instead to keep what they turn around every six months, seasonal clothes, hobby stuff, things that they do not need, but use on a daily basis. It provides room to breathe but not to stress making difficult decisions at all the moments.
The irony is that it will prove to be slightly excessive as time goes by and larger spaces are in question. You get used to efficiency. The use of each corner. Not that everything has been where it was in vain.
It is not literally attempting to cram life into a little bit of space, but is attempting to make the space practical.