Our apartment as a small ship

We are in the process of getting new carpet in our apartment, which means we are finally doing something I have been putting off for three years. We have to pack up everything we own, move furniture from one room to the next, let the old carpet be torn up, and then tiptoe across the bare boards while a new layer is rolled out like a fresh beginning. We are doing this slowly over a few weeks, one room at a time.

It sounds simple, but it feels as if we are temporarily dismantling our entire life. Every bookshelf, every drawer, every forgotten basket filled with wool tucked under a side table is suddenly exposed. Nothing can hide. The new carpet demands to meet every object personally.

I kept putting this project off for years. While I was working full-time and travelling around the world, there was always a good excuse. There was always a flight to catch or a deadline waiting. I lived in a kind of constant forward motion where the idea of stopping long enough to reorganize, declutter, and shift all of our possessions from one room to another felt impossible.

Then came the preparation for the voyage, and then the voyage itself. The focus moved from our apartment to everything that had to be ready for a life at sea. The months stretched and curled around the work. The idea of getting new carpets vanished like smoke from my priority list.

What changed was something very simple and a little unexpected. Spending two months on a ship, watching how provisions and spare parts were taken on board, shifted something in me. Everything that arrived on the pier disappeared into the ship like a magician’s trick. (Well, actually, with a lot of sweat and brawn.) There were endless storage spaces under the bow and in the engine room, compartments that opened up like secret tunnels. You could hide a small village in there.

It reminded me of how our home is like a museum with vast archives of art that never see the light. Entire crates of paintings and pottery and textiles, carefully wrapped, labelled, catalogued, and then kept forever in the dark. What a waste.

Our apartment maintains its own museum. Cupboards become galleries of what we think we might one day need. Drawers become archives of good intentions for future improvements. A shelf holds a pile of books I once meant to read. Another holds gifts I never used, but could not bring myself to give away. Our linen cupboard has become a tomb of sheets and towels that have not seen daylight since the last century.

One of the first things I did upon returning was to go to our local store and order new carpet for the whole apartment to replace the one we laid thirty years ago.

The ship had taught me that storage is not a sentimental act. It is a practical one. The crew onboard Roland never stored anything they did not need because space was sacred. Every spare part had to justify its presence. Every tube of grease, every bolt, every emergency device had its purpose and its place. There was no romance in keeping things simply because they had travelled with you for years.

So we began, but slowly. We took a cupboard at a time, a drawer at a time, opening them as if they were tiny archaeological digs. There is something funny about the way an ordinary drawer can tell you a whole history. One that has not been thought about for years.

We removed every object and had to weigh its worth. It was shocking how much had no place in our lives. Here is a souvenir from a trip whose details I can barely remember. Here is a birthday card from someone I adore, but do not need to archive. Here are cables for old phones and other devices that have long been discarded. None of it was dramatic, though I did find my birth certificate, which I had thought long gone.

With each cupboard emptied, I feel myself becoming lighter. My shoulders drop a little. Once the carpet is laid and everything is put back into place, the rooms feel brighter. I do not want to romanticise decluttering because it is not a poetic activity. It is dusty and repetitive and involves a lot of stepping over piles. But something about it feels joyful. There is relief in being deliberate. There is a certain quiet pride in choosing what you want to live with.

The ship taught me that order does not have to be rigid. It is simply a form of respect. Respect for the things that matter and for the space that holds them. Respect for the future self who will open a drawer and find only what they need. So, this carpet project, which I dreaded for years, has become a kind of domestic reckoning. A small voyage through our own stored history.

We are halfway done. Taking a tour around the apartment is simultaneously a before and after photo. It’s amazing to slowly reach the end. The process is learning by doing. Decluttering is not really about getting rid of things. It is about understanding yourself. You confront the habits you forgot you had. You meet the person you used to be. And you gently decide who you want to be now.