I keep staring at this lower photo, trying to figure out what the orange thing on the floor is. If you’re living in an apartment the size of a minivan, every item you have has to be useful, right? Every possession needs to be justified?
And then they go and get a… a… big orange dot. A scale? A Frisbee? Is it the cork sealing the hole in the floor that leads to the apartment below? Is it the secret passageway to the bathroom? Is it where the kids in the family do their timeouts when they misbehave? I do not know.
Found by: Tania
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Copy & paste this:
Looks like a scale.
I say it at Ikea France but I cannot remember what it is DAMMIT!
I think the orange dot is the area rug for the living room (it’s vast!).
Either that or one of those “you are here” orientation marks on room plans.
It’s a round tuit
I`ve always meant to get a round tuit.
That orange thingy looks to me like my gardening-tool – a soft “cushion” (well sort of – No Idea how this is called in english, sorry) to kneel on when I do gardening. It also has a hole there for carrying. Also Used it when renovating – painting walls in the lower parts of the wall.
Maybe the orange dot is a non-slip thing so they don’t fall on their rear coming down the ladder?
The dot is sold by Ikea. It’s some sort of toy. We have a whole stack of them around the house, the kids use them for leaping games, like lily pads.
Actually, a lot of the furniture in the photo comes from Ikea. The tiny computer desk is from there too, as is the fold-out shelf on the left.
What an impressive use of space.
Just beware of the autowash.
Fifth Element FTW!!
That is an IKEA item. A seat cushion I believe, from the kids department. The desk in Mikael desk from IKEA, so I know they shopped there! (I knew my 20 years of obsessively reading the catalog would pay off!)
I’m trying to figure out how you get at the sink without bumping your head on that lovely microwave shelf. Unless the shelf is higher up than it looks, in which case, I’m now wondering how you get to the microwave.
The dot, meanwhile, is clearly on the lam, having escaped from Target’s logo. It’s faded a little in the sun, that’s all.
I think it’s a “Lazy Susan” thing so you can work in the kitchen etc without moving your feet.
Or is it one of those 80s lazy susan type exercise things that you stand and twist on to trim your waist?
Holding onto the ladder for balance. Well, you’d need some way to do abdominal exercises, there isn’t the space to do sit-ups
Is this in France or an Ikea store? It may be part of their new Kråmpt line.
lol
Stuart, you keep coming up with the good ones!
Wow, this makes one of those Ikea example apartments look like Versailles.
The desk is a chair is a desk is a chair…
I have to echo the thoughts on the microwave. When you open the door, it opens TOWARD you, thus blocking access to the insides. If you’re takikng out someting hot, expect to get burned. Well, at least you can drop it in the sink….
It’s remarkably badly designed. Nothing matches, it all looks dirty, the only kitchen shelf is unreachable by anyone short enough to use the sink, everything looks jammed into spaces just a hair too small – it might have worked had they not been so pennywise and pound foolish.
The description says “Pas de douche” (no shower, not that this matters to the average Frenchman), but really, anyone who spends even a single sou renting that prison cell is quite the douche indeed.
* “D’une douche”. There is a shower, and even a private toilet on the landing.
Most hotel rooms are bigger than this, and they come with their own bathroom (with a shower!).
I was worried that the toilet was around behind the partition, next to the stove/sink… we have seen such horrors before! But the listing says “Toilettes Séparées” which I assume means it’s down the hall somewhere.
I was gonna guess the dot is where you stand to take a shower and that little hole is the drain.
I feel horribly claustrophobic just looking at the images.
*shudder*
would hate to see the bathroom in the place. most likely the size for a mouse.
good thing it is efficient. no wasted space.
thing is, the way the population of the planet is growing. this maybe the house of tomorrow.
This really isn’t bad. I don’t like listings on here that aren’t bad, just tiny. If this had a lawnchair in it, however…
On the plus side, there’s an elevator. Big plus for a place on the 7th (US 8th) floor, not always a standard feature in Paris apartment houses.
Can’t tell you how much fun it is schlepping up and down eight flights of stairs, especially carrying anything larger than a cell phone.
On the minus side, not only is there no shower but it’s a shared toilet in the hallway. Of course, once you climb the ladder into your cozy bed/shelf, you won’t be getting up to pee anyway.
Strange priorities: no shower or toilet but intercom and watchman/porter. As if you could have anyone visit you or have enough space for anything worth stealing
A cute, clean studio apartment in Paris for 405 Euro/mth (am I reading that correctly)? Sure, I’d have to go down the hall to go potty, but that’s not so different from many European boarding houses. Heck, I’ll take it. I wish this offer would be available after my son graduates in 7 years and I get to start my new life. I’d have to change the yellow, though. Bright, happy yellow makes me anything but bright and happy. I do question the “pas de douche,” though. Does that mean that the residents share a bathtub in the common bathroom? That’s kinda, ermmmm, icky. I’d scrub that sucker out with bleach every time before I used it. Or, does that mean there’s no bathing option period in the joint? If so, never mind, no thanks, nu uh. Can you legally offer a residence without a means of bathing?
The orange spot? Y’all remember in Looney Tunes how Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, etc. can pull out a flat, round spot, throw it up against a stone or the floor and make a hole to run through? This is the orange model.
Yeah I’m wondering if that’s per week or month or what???
Do you really need a dishwasher when your kitchen is 2 foot by 2 foot? How many dirty dishes are you really making?
The sink doesn’t look large enough to wash big plates. On the other hand, I suspect that “dishwasher” is a mini-fridge… I don’t see any other kind of fridge anywhere else.
Well, this is more privacy and conveniences than I got living in a college dorm with a roommate and a big communal bathroom down the hall. We didn’t have a sink in our room, or a microwave.
I know what the thing is. It is a seat pad from Ikea. I have 27 of them. But instead of taking them to a game to sit on, I hang them on my wall as decoration and as a toy for the kids to play with. So YES, it is ALL the things you said, and more. Everything from a frisbee to a lazy susan. It is the favorite toy in my house. So, perhaps they saw the picture of my playroom and tried to imitate my decorating savvy. Sad that they only had room for one. On the floor.
I got one of those dots in green. They’re great if you run out of chairs, people don’t have to sit on the naked floor. I actually knew plenty of student apartments like that. One with the shower right next to the sink.
It’s a cutting board. Isn’t that where everyone keeps theirs?
I wasn’t really surprised once I saw it was in France. A mate of ours from France who was backpacking through NZ came over for coffee and to borrow the shower one day and he was amazed at our little three-bedroom house, he said that to him it was the size of a palace, and that he rented a tiny attic room as an apartment for a phenomenal amount a month. Apparently he couldn’t even stand up straight in one half of his ‘apartment’.
This is about the size of the dwellings of many of the people I visited in India last month. A family of 6 in India could live comfortably in there.
Now that’s the definition of a close knit family!
This is the two-bedroom model. After you lift the orange hatch, just remember to shout “Make a hole!” before you start down the ladder. Otherwise, you might end up in the downstairs neighbor’s lap.
My French may be a bit rusty, but it isn’t THAT bad. I wonder where some of you are getting your ideas from.
“agréable chambre à louer avec salle de douche au 4ème étage” means “Nice room to rent with shower room on the fourth floor (fifth for us folks in the USA)” That sounds to me as if the “shower room” is what you are seeing behind the desk. See the glass door reflecting the tiled wall and windows? That is a small enclosed shower.
“WC sur le palier” means “WC (water closet or bathroom for folks in the USA) on the landing”. I can only imagine this is likely a communal toilet for all the folks renting these monastic cells on the fifth floor. I wonder, though, whether this is literally meaning it opens onto the stairwell landing.
@songbirdcindi, who writes: “Most hotel rooms are bigger than this, and they come with their own bathroom (with a shower!).” I am guessing you haven’t stayed in a hotel in Paris, at least not any that isn’t a hideously overpriced American-style hotel. Most typical hotels would have room for a bed and desk, just enough room to move around the bed and (if you are lucky) a shower. Almost certainly, the toilet would be communal. That is what the hotels were like that I stayed in on my last couple of visits to Paris. One was on the wonderful little Rue de la Huchette, just across the river and down a couple of blocks from Notre Dame de Paris! Another was right on the lovely, wooded, park-like square with the Abbesses Metro station. That is, right in Montmartre, only a few blocks from the Basilica du Sacre Couer. Both were clean and well under $100 a night. One crazy thing in the last one was that the lights in the hall and stairwell were on TIMERS! You had to find the knob, twist it and run like hell to get to the next knob before the lights went out in about 30 seconds! I know utilities are really high in Europe, but it is hard to believe that would meet fire/safety codes.
I don’t know where folks are getting this stuff about 7th floor, no shower, the building having an elevator (ascenseur), etc. Walkups are pretty common/normal. In these old buildings, an elevator is often retrofitted into the middle of a spiraling staircase well. In the ones I have had the pleasure of riding, you might fit two people IF they are close friends, or yourself and maybe all of your luggage.
Lastly, don’t you understand the INCREDIBLE location of this studio apartment?? It is right in the heart of all the best things in Paris! Literally walking distance to a large number of the most incredible sights and experiences you could find in Paris. If I were about to spend a few months in Paris I would be all over this thing.
Sorry for the long comment
It’s a good long comment, I love the lights on timers story, thank you. Plus ten internets for being both entertaining and informative.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if that little orange circle was a tiny trampoline?
Perhaps it is where they land the heli.
Perhaps it’s the garbage chute? I can’t see anywhere that has space for a trash can.
It’s a multi-tasker’s dream home.
If you stand at N 43° 34′ 49.071″ latitude and W 100° 32′ 48.75″ longitude, you can wash the dishes, heat up food in the microwave, eat, watch TV, read a book and get the shower ready.
A real time and space saver!
I think it’s a cutting board that fits over the sink.
It’s a trap door to a not-so-secret secret passageway.
The orange thing…..Its a roomba! they got tired of sweeping all the time.
if i wasn’t claustrophobic, i could probably live there.
I work at IKEA, the orange thing (and the rest of the furniture) is ours.
We don’t know what it is either.
I knew it was France the moment I saw it. I had a friend who lived in a place just like that in Aix-en-Provence. I think what really sucks is that it says it’s on the 8th floor (7th in europe) and that there’s no elevator…ouch
it is an ikea floor spot to sit in or stand on. it is rubbery and pretty comfortable. we own several.