Hobbit House Tour
I thought I’d give a thorough tour of our little rented apartment here in Würzburg, Germany, which we refer to as the “Hobbit House.” The place is rather quirky and aesthetically challenging, but we manage to make it work.
On our last trip here, I desperately fought against the ugly decor, hiding things away and buying organizational supplies at the Euro Shop. I tend to rearrange all of our temporary accommodations in whatever city we travel to for Matt’s work, sometimes rearranging furniture, often just focusing on putting away our supplies and suitcases and keeping the clutter under control. But this always seems to make things worse for Matt, who is an “out of sight, out of mind” type of person. He prefers to let his necessities scatter across the apartment, finding things more quickly this way than if they were tucked away. So this trip, rather than fight against his instincts, I’ve tried to embrace the situation and allow for some organized chaos. Matt’s working so hard here and is so pressed for time that he needs to keep things where he can see them.
I’ve also decided to surrender to the hideous decor. Despite my best efforts last time, I was never satisfied with the way things looked anyway. It’s hard to see such a potentially gorgeous apartment filled with offensive decorations, but apart from disassembling the whole shebang and throwing it out the window, I just don’t see any way around it. So this time, I didn’t buy any little baskets at the Euro Shop, I left the homemade paintings on the walls, and aside from hiding the ugliest things, just let it be.
Heading up to the apartment is a steep staircase; the apartment sits in the eaves of the building’s roof so it’s a four flight trek up to the top every time you come home. Once inside, there’s a very practical coat rack to your left which holds a myriad of coats and shopping bags which are so necessary here (we stash our bottles from drinking water here, too, since you have to turn them in at the supermarket). Next to that is a closet, also very practical as it fits all of our clothes and even hides away our suitcases. The right side has a little bench where dirty laundry lives.
Moving on to a grand sweep of the place, you’ll see two grubby, slightly futuristic and suspiciously IKEA-esque couches, coffee table in between. The coffee table has been the location of a lot of sprawling clutter, so I’ve attempted to contain it into the little cardboard boxes that our apples come in. I’ve also repurposed a tissue box to hold my pill bag and my headphones. There was an area rug here, but I dropped a drinking glass on it and the glass shattered. With no vacuum cleaner to tidy up, I just rolled the rug up and shoved it under one of the couches. Needless to say, I don’t miss it. Oh, and there was also a pillow in the shape of a rabbit (see photo); I threw it straight onto the top of the wardrobe upon our arrival.
To your right is a beautiful spiral staircase with a hideous TV cart under it. The bathroom just beyond it has a rather shocking choice of tile going on, but also has sufficient storage between the counter over the sink and the shelves behind the door. I don’t bother tidying up in there since entropy always wins out anyway. I figure if I need something, I’ll go looking for it, so I haven’t even emptied my travel bag- it just sits on the shelf above the towel rack where we hang the bath mat to dry.
Next to the bathroom is the little spare room where we keep most of our food and other supplies. I stashed some dried flowers in there along with a gross kettle, an ancient hairdryer, and a toaster that smells like burning plastic when you try to use it. Note the only curtains we didn’t manage to remove, as well as one of our TK Maxx towels drying on the chair (it’s really just the only place for it). There’s a clothing rack which is great for airing out clothes that aren’t quite ready for the wash. And then there’s the infamous little bed where I hide from the world almost every day at some point. This is where I cry and nap and where Matt rubs my feet when things get particularly bad.
The real coup de grace is the “kitchen” where you really can’t do much cooking. It’s equipped with a microwave, toaster oven (that seems to slowly dehydrate food as opposed to toasting it), the kettle we bought on Amazon, a small sink, and a mini-fridge. With so little fridge space, groceries must be bought every day, a task Matt usually takes on first thing every morning. I did manage to clear out a single drawer for some of our food when I went on a tear and sterilized everything in the kitchen.
There’s a nice-sized dining table with very dirty cushions on the chairs where we eat our meals, and where our second towel dries. From here there’s a view of one of the offending pieces of art- I hid it last time, but this time I just got over it. There are always bits and bobs on the table along with our fruit and my food scale (Amazon again) for weighing out exact portions. You might notice that there are no curtains on the kitchen and living room windows. They were so dusty and depressing that we elected to take them down and stuff them in the back of the closet. The views out the windows are actually not bad if you can see past all the dirt, and due to the angled walls, you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing you in your underwear.
The last stop on this little tour is the loft bedroom. The bed is composed of two twin beds with separate twin comforters, plus a blanket from Amazon that we try to share. I usually end up squished up against the wall and Matt ends up between the two mattresses. I find this little nook in the eaves comforting, but Matt gets a bit claustrophobic despite the lovely view of a nearby cathedral. This room got the biggest makeover: I removed a sharp-cornered shelf from the bed area and then stashed a bunch of crap at the other end of the loft. There are some gold and glass end tables, a wicker chair, a fake ficus, and a very, very dirty rug.
And that about sums it up. I’d say I can’t complain, but I guess I already did. I’m really trying to practice acceptance of this imperfect reality. Because what else is there?