Things I've learned about how we live

I've been reading a lot of books about organizing and storage lately and also about small apartments. Our apartment is clearly not small, but why does it feel that way? There is only 2 people living in almost 100 square meters/ 1050 square feet. That is heck of an area per person.

My favourite books so far have been by Terence Conran. Especially the book called Storage - Get Organized. I read that book many months ago, but no book after it has managed to make me think as much. Since that book and few other books, I've started to create a list of the qualities we, me and A, need from an apartment or house.

So, if we would ever buy a new home or do a major renovation to the existing one, these qualities should be met:

• Open kitchen plan, with only one dining table, the second table we now have in the livingroom is totally useless
• Separate TV-room, with soundproofing if possible. I hate listening someone else watching television or playing an Xbox game, it drives me nuts
• Additional to the TV-room there should be a livingroom, dedicated for listening to music and for entertaining, this room can be very small, but preferably with large windows
• The bedroom can contain of just a bed, especially if there is a walk-in closet nearby
• Home office is not needed, we use laptops and we are never ever in the office, we do need somewhere to store the taxpapers and such, so perhaps an office cabinet would be more appropriate
• Storage room is essential
• Laundry room is essential, I'm amazed that most of the apartments built nowdays have no laudry room
• Bathroom can be small
• Kitchen does not need to be big
• Two toilets are needed
• Guest room is not needed, the guest bed can be hidden somewhere, we really don't have overnight guests that often
• The entrance does not need to be big, but it needs to have plenty of storage space

And here are a few nice to haves

• A table for crafting would be nice
• Garden would be nice
• Cellar for garden produce
• Patio to store not hardy plants for the winter
• Wood craft area would be so cool
• Greenhouse would be nice
• Large terrace

Some of the qualities mentioned here we allready have, which is good, but in some parts we have way too much room and in some things not enough. There are clearly some under utilized areas in our home. That is why it must feel so small. Bad thing is that I feel that we have to do something major to make use of the room we have in a more efficient way