Sometimes Martin and I get a little nostalgic for our home in Berlin.  We’ll flip through pictures.  And when we’re video chatting over iChat with our family that’s taking care of the place, we’ll try to peek over their shoulders to see our little home.  So when Steph wrote to me with a few questions about our apartment, fine.  Go ahead and pinch me.  Make me look back on those good old days in the land of beer and bratwurst.  Here’s her kind question:

Hi Katie, I love your blog, it’s amazing how in north america we waste so much.  You’ve made me stop & think do I really need this or will I end up just throwing it out , your blog also shows how much we need to change things here in Canada especially with recycling.

Anyways I was wondering how much storage space do you have in Germany for storing clothes, do you have closets, & did you have to downsize the amount of clothing & linens that you had?  Just curious:-)  -Steph

First off, Germans don’t have closets.  I’ve heard of a dozen reasons why – from taxation to efficiency.  You name it.  All I can tell you is that about everyone from North America thinks it’s nuts.  Then you get used to it.  Germans generally prefer to buy furniture like this wardrobe to keep everything organized in:

You can probably guess: we don’t have room for something like this in our 480 square foot house.  True to our nature, we learned to improvise and focus on the things that can add more to our home.

Storing our clothes.  Martin and I share a dresser that’s smaller than the one I grew up with.  We each have a space that’s just under 2 x 2.5 feet tall and just deep enough for a folded shirt or pair of pants.  Then we have about 25 hangers for work clothes, coats, and my dresses.  I actually have to flip the bottoms of my dresses into the hangars since our hanging space is only as tall as Martin’s long sleeved shirts.  We have five little drawers for things like socks and undergarments.

Learning to cut back on clothes. Think you could fit all of your clothes in that much space?  We sure couldn’t in the US before we moved.  We probably couldn’t have fit all of my things in that much space.  I think we were really lucky that our move to a small home was also an overseas move.  We maxed out on how much luggage we could check into the plane (200 pounds); we didn’t want to pay for shipping.  It meant only our favorite clothes went with us.  We stopped hanging onto all of those things that we never wore and never really liked.  Then we only bought what we absolutely needed in Germany – like a few sweaters when it got cold.  We wash one load of laundry in our half-size washing machine every week.  If we get behind, we run out of clean clothes.

We didn’t have to create challenges like last week’s mention of our No New Clothes shopping challenges like we’re doing this summer in the US.  When you don’t have extra space, you find yourself putting a much different value on everything you own.  It’s the same if you’re a person who moves a lot.  The only things that stay are the things you absolutely want to (or need to) have.

Stashing the sheets. We expect a lot of guests over the years.  You know how it is.  Move to Europe, and family wants to visit.  So we have three fitted sheets: one for us, one for the fold-out couch, and an extra.  We only have one top sheet for in the summer because we use duvet covers, which are sheets that wrap around a puffy blanket that Germans adore.  Those all get stuffed into this big drawer that we built into an alcove in the hallway:

The space used to be white and completely empty.  By building a drawer and bike rack above it, we snatch priceless storage.  It also means our bicycles – which get us everywhere – don’t have to be parked in the middle of the hallway.

Keeping shoes. The hallway is already filled anyway.  It’s home to all of our shoes.  Yep.  All ten pairs.

Martin built this little bench/shoe rack to match the old bookcase after much begging from me.  I didn’t like picking up shoes to clean the floors, and I wanted a place to sit down to tie my shoes (we follow the German tradition of taking off our shoes at home).

Hauling groceries on foot would be a miserable job in flip flops, so we don’t have any.  We have to have shoes that we can do a lot of walking in.  I have flats, dressy sandals, and tennis shoes.  They’re all I need in the city.

I love shoes in Germany.  They are so attractive that I even find myself looking at mens’ feet in the U-Bahn (subway).  It’s probably why I dream of buying more shoes… if I had room.  But even if I had a dozen pairs of shoes, I think I’d still reach for the exact same ones every time.  Would you?

Hanging towels. Is it just us or did you get a lot of towels for your wedding, too?  We were so nervous that someone would come to our house and see that we didn’t have their towels in the bathroom.  (We got over it quickly, though; we had to return most of them to afford dress clothes for Martin.)  Fast forward to today, and we have far, far fewer towels.

We started from scratch instead of bringing towels from the US – not that it took a lot to fill our needs.  We each have one large towel.  When it’s time to wash them, we reach for one of four small towels that serve as guest towels and a hand towel.  It’s all we can fit in our storage-less bathroom.  The crazy thing that we’ve learned is that it’s all we need.  In fact, if we had no guests, we wouldn’t even need as many as we do.

So Steph, I hope that answers your question.  Now everyone will be sure to notice – “Aha!  You wore that same pink shirt two weeks ago, Katie.”  It’s true.  I probably did.  But if I weren’t wearing it, I’d have to get rid of it.

Feel free to shoot an email my way for more Q&As or spout out a few secrets for living with less in the comments.

(First image from IKEA, remainder from Making This Home)