Lockdown In A Small Home – How We Make It Work

It’s been over a month now since we’ve entered what is referred to as an “intelligent lockdown” here in the Netherlands. We have all kinds of rules and regulations in place, but what it comes down to is: stay home as much as possible, and see as few people as possible in person.

Luckily, staying home isn’t that big of a problem for us. We’re both able to continue performing our jobs from home, we don’t have children, and our home has all the modern comforts we could ask for. We even have a little bit of outside space in the form of a balcony.

Comfortable as it is however, our home is rather small. We live in a single bedroom apartment which means we see a lot of each other, all day every day. Even though it’s less than ideal and we’d prefer to have a bit more space, we’ve found a way to make it work. Here’s how we handle lockdown in a 45 sq m (484 sq ft) home.

Prioritise & Schedule

This is a huge thing when several people live together in normal times as well, but I feel like it’s extra important now. Identifying what everybody’s priorities are when it comes to life at home, and trying to find a way to meet everybody’s needs.

We’re stuck together more than ever, so it’s extra important that the both of us are comfortable and able to function. We need to take each other’s wishes into consideration even more than usual now, and that’s something we need to be prepared to do.

I sometimes have to ask Robbert to move his work station several times a day, as our home is also my filming studio. Although having a blurry man behind a laptop in the backgroud of my hair tutorials might be rather funny, it’s not necessarily something either of us want. On the other hand, when Robbert has a conference call, I have to put my filming on hold. There are a lot of consessions to be made at the moment and it’s good to be on the same page about them.

We’ve identified our weekly schedules (as far as there are any at the moment), and try to make them work together as best as we can. That way both of us know what’s coming, we’re in each other’s way as little as possible, and we don’t lose track of what day it is :)

Keep It Tidy

A constantly inhabited small home will get messy at the speed of light. I don’t know about you, but being in a messy or dirty environment puts me under added stress and pressure that I can’t use right now, especially when I can’t escape it.

I make sure our home is as nice, functional and inviting as possible by cleaning & tidying daily. Putting things away as soon as we’re finished with them, making sure every item we own has a home, and being mindful of all the new things we bring into the apartment. But also staying on top of the dishes, and cleaning surfaces a bit more frequently than usual. Keeping everything tidy is always important in a small home, but even more so now that we spend all of our time here.

Spend Quality Time Together

Even though we’re getting used to the situation more and more, it’s still an odd and stressful time that impacts us in many ways. We allow ourselves a bit more time to relax, come together and spend some quality time. This helps make sure no tension builds up between us and that we both still enjoy being around each other, and we don’t start feeling like we’re stuck together against our will. We play games, hop on video calls with friends, and take short walks or bike rides around the neighbourhood, amongst other things.

Spend Time Apart

Even though we enjoy each other’s company, I feel like it’s still important to do things on our own and spend some time apart every now and again. We can’t really be apart physically in our home, but there are definitely times when we both do our own thing. I’ll work on my sewing while Robbert plays a video game with a friend, for example. I also really enjoy taking out my inline skates and going on a little ride alone. It’s good to maintain a certain sense of independance, and might just be the one thing that keeps us from developing cabin fever.

No Big Physical Projects

Decluttering is wonderful and you know I’m all for it, but now may not be the best time for me to weed out our hallway closet. Any project that can’t be finished in a few hours or put away to be finished later, is better pushed back until things go back to normal. This circles back to keeping the home liveable, comfortable and clean. A big project like a major declutter or re-organisation would certainly disrupt our work life and there’s no room for “it always gets worse before it gets better” right now. Not to mention we can’t drop anything off at the secondhand shop or recycling station at the moment, so we’d have to store anything we declutter somewhere else in the house.

Tackling house and garden work can be a fantastic way to spend free time during lockdown, but I’d think it over twice before starting a big project in a small home right now.

Try Something New

We love our home and our life at home, but after a month of home life only, days can start to blend together and get a bit boring around here. We make an effort to do something new, fun and exciting every once in a while, no matter how small. I’ve been trying different at home workouts than I usually do, we got some new games to play, and we even chopstick-curled Robbert’s hair. We’ve been trying new recipes and ordering food from restaurants we’ve never ordered from before. It’s little things like that that keep our days from becoming too monotonous.

Talk

Here I go again, stressing how important it is to communicate… But it really is. We make sure to check in on each other regularly, to see how we’re feeling about the pandemic, how we feel about the way we’re doing things, and just how we feel in general. It’s all about keeping ourselves and each other as comfortable as possible throughout this whole thing and expressing our thoughts and needs frequently is an important part of that.