Visitors usually say the same thing: it feels bigger than it is. The apartment is thirty-eight square metres, which is not bigger than it is. It just contains very few things that are there by accident.
Every object in a small home holds a visible job. The chair is for reading and for guests. The table is a desk at nine, a dining room at seven, and a workbench on Sundays. When one thing must do three jobs, you quickly learn to buy the good version once.
Enough is not a number. It is the moment a room stops asking you for anything.
Living with less is often sold as discipline. In practice it feels more like relief. There is less to clean, less to repair, less to apologise for. The calm is not minimalism. The calm is maintenance, finally small enough to finish.