Compact Living - My Small House In Spain, Part 1

Hello!

Are you ready for some more compact living? I hope so :-)

As I told you before we will still live compact although we are selling our caravan. Why? Because we are moving to Gran Canaria and have such a small house there.

It´s been a fun and challenging task to make a small house nice and functional for 5 people and 3 cats.

It´s interesting how you can change your mindset of what you think you need as a family. In Sweden we have a house, 145 square metres big. We almost moved to a bigger house since we felt we needed more space after we got our third child. We didn´t move, instead we built a fourth bedroom. All kids have to have their own rooms, right?!

Then we purchased a little terrace house in Gran Canaria one year ago. The purpose was to have it as our holiday home and also rent it out. Instead we spent 4 months in it last Winter and now we are going to spend at least 8 months in our little Spanish home. 

The house is only about 35 square metres big and in that space 5 people and 3 cats will live. And do you know what? It works! I believe we are happier in that small space than in our big house. All items have its own place and we have arranged it in a good way. We have everything we need and always a tidy home. It´s also easy and fast to clean a small space. 

So, I thought I will show you our house. Last year it was totally renovated and we made all the planning from a distance since we lived in Sweden at that time. It´s certainly not an easy task to renovate (of course we had a carpenter doing the job) and decorate a home from a distance when you´re in another country, but we did it. We were happy with the result.

I will just tell you, I´m not a decorator, not even handy. I just like compact living, to make it functional for many people in a small space. Also since we bought everything from a distance, all the furniture had to be from Ikea so we could arrange the furniture and more from Sweden. Ikea is good in that manner, they have the same products all over the world. 

Now it´s time for before and after photos:

Here is the kitchen/living room when we bought the house.

This is after renovating, Christmas morning.

The sofa is a sofabed and fits 2 people sleeping. It has great storage underneath, easy to reach.

I love Christmas and a lot of candles. We had a very small Christmas tree ;-)

The kitchen. The pink colour on the handles is changeable. 

Seating for 2 people inside is enough since we always sit on the terrace.

It was very important for us to have a dishwasher. Therefore we didn´t have a lot of storage space. We choose to have plates, glasses etc in the corner cupboard which you can spin. Works great!

"The hall" before.

The "hall" after.

In the big wardrobe with mirror doors (to make the room look bigger) fits a robot cat litter. I made a whole in the side of the wardrobe for the cats to entering and exit. They can go to the toilet without us smelling it or having sand on the floor outside.

The electric thing with a little lamp is to get rid of crawling insects. It gives a very high sound which humans or cats can´t hear but the cockroaches don´t like it. I felt that it worked.

I put 2 shoe shelves on the side of the wardrobe to hide shoes inside.

Our suitcases fit perfect. We also have 2 more suitcases inside the purple one. Underneath we can have some storage and cleaning things. I cut a shoe rack in half. One of the pieces I glued on a hanger. 

It´s almost funny how the mindset about the space have changed for the family (although I have always enjoyed compact living). The kids love our small house and have no issues about the whole family sleeping in the same room. They think it´s cosy and I also think they enjoy having the family close. Next time I will show you before and after photos of the bedroom, bathroom and more. 

I just love the view and my working space outdoor. Last Winter my husband was home (in Gran Canaria) on paternity leave with our youngest son. I also got to enjoy my son a lot since working at home is flexible. He could play in the garden, while I did some studying and digital marketing on my computer. I could choose to take a break for swimming in the pool with him and plan my days as suited me and the family the best.

Living the Digital Lifestyle at its best! :-) 

Take care! All The Best!

Monica Bergkvist