I mean, things could be worse. Sure. So don’t think I’m being ungrateful. I have a roof over my head and there’s food in the fridge downstairs. But um, my bedroom is really small.
It’s seriously like a bedroom for ants. Incy wincy spiders would love it in here. Stuart Little should move in.
I’ve sacrificed space and a double bed for location and price. I’m paying £500 a month and trust me when I tell you that’s a bargain considering I can see the top of The Shard and the Gherkin from the park across the road. I have a train station two minutes walk, a tube station five minutes, a 24-hour supermarket five minutes in one direction, a department store five minutes in the other. I’ve got Boris Bikes on my doorstep and my gym is a stone’s throw.
But the room is really small.
I sleep in a single bed for God’s sake. It has lovely soft Egyptian-cotton sheets, which I gifted myself to compromise on the bed, but it’s still single. A one-person show. One’s company, two is a terrible night’s sleep. Then I step out of the damn thing and if I don’t turn immediately left or right I’ll break my nose on a wall. My lamp sits at the end of my bed because the door is where a bedside table should be and I obviously have absolutely no room on the floor for activities.
The room is 190x220cm. It’s a box. A little tiny box the size of a walk-in wardrobe. I have exactly one small bed, one children’s cupboard, one slim shelf and a windowsill. I operate a lot off my windowsill. It has a scented candle which I ignite once a week to ensure peculiar smells don’t emanate in the small space. And I always make sure there is space among the books I don’t read for my wine glass.
I do have an enviable wine collection going on though. I know, you’d think with limited space I might want to store bedroom things instead of cellar things. But some things are more important to me right now.
After I came back from Australia in April and retrieved my belongings from my friend’s garage (where it had been sitting for 18 months) I threw 50% of it out. I’m living off minimal belongings and I kind of like it. I mean, I absolutely feel like I wear the same outfits every day, but at least I’m not being judged on fashion by the two gays I work with. (Or am I, you bastards?)
Back to the size of my small bedroom. My room is actually the size of a tomb. It could be a tomb. Some dead people literally have more sleeping space than me. It’s really small. I’m not exaggerating. My friends tease me about it a fair bit.
But again, location. Location, location, location. Location wise I’m so damn central. It takes me 10 minutes to get to work on a bike. 20 on foot. 20 on a bus. 15 minutes on the underground to the centre of bloody London! I’ve nailed work/life balance in a city brimming with crushed spirits and depressed commuters.
But yes, it’s still very, very small. Like the smallest I’ve ever seen.
But I’m saving money, you see. I’ll be much richer by the end of the year than I would if I paid for one of those show-off normal-sized rooms where you get to take more than three normal-sized steps. My body might be contorted by the time the lease is up, but hey-ho, #savings.
I don’t have anyone to share the bed with anyway. And I’m not going to go out and pay an extra £100 a month in the off chance I might meet someone I want to lay in bed with to watch Netflix. We’ll do it at their house. Problem solved.
It’s really small though. I’d maybe like a little more room for my fan. The room really retains the heat.
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