Christy’s Stuttgart Apartment: 2021 Fall Home Tour

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Stuttgart, Germany! We’ve lived over here for just over a year now, so I’m sharing our sixth home in five years, which if nothing else guarantees that I get to see how our furniture looks in a variety of settings!

Many thanks to Marty at A Stroll Thru Life for organizing this thirty-blog tour–it’s a lot of work! Be sure to take a look at this week’s lineup at the end of the post and check everyone’s homes out. If you’re visiting from Julia over at Cuckoo4Design, welcome. I don’t think Marty intended to put the German girl right before the girl living in Germany, but it worked out well, didn’t it?

We live in a 200 square meter (around 2000sf) apartment in downtown Stuttgart Süd (South). We’re lucky to have an elevator which opens right into our entrance hallway:

It’s just me and my husband now–plus our dog and cat–since our youngest started college in the States last month. The house is so quiet now!

I love vintage and thrifted pieces, and this repurposed sewing cabinet sits right by the elevator. The basket hides the dog’s collar and leashes.

We’re lucky to have a fenced garden space for him to take bathroom breaks, and then I take him for a longer walk around our neighborhood in the evenings. My rain boots stay out year round because the rainy season seems to be year round, too!

The three bedrooms are off the hallway on the right; they all face the street. The kitchen, living room, and dining room have a fabulous view of the city that I’ll show you in a minute.

One thing I’ve had a hard time getting used to is that there are no closets in German homes! We have to use armoires for everything, from cleaning supplies to linens. I believe they’re taxed on every room in their home, and closets count as rooms. So we had to make several IKEA runs when we first arrived to buy their PAX systems for our clothes.

This little armoire holds our bathroom towels and bed linens.

The beautiful artwork is courtesy of my downstairs neighbor, who is a talented artist. You can see more of her work in this post and this post.

This little drop zone is to the left of the elevator; it opens onto the kitchen, powder room, and dining room.

Again, we don’t have a coat closet, so I had to find a coat rack as soon as we arrived! The straw tote goes to the market with me as you have to buy paper bags here if you forget yours.

I only brought one bin of fall decorations over with me; the rest are in storage back in the States. We do have a small storage area in our kellar (cellar) which is where all the seasonal/holiday decorations live when they’re not in use. I’d rather leave room for all the wine we’re collecting, though!

Here’s our dining room/living room. One of my goals for this next year is to find several antique chandeliers in the flohmarkts and brocantes; we didn’t get to do much shopping last year because we were locked down hard over here and they were all closed. I do like the dining room chandelier that came with the house; it’s not my usual style but fits the Bauhaus design aesthetic of this property.

I love the view from this side of the apartment. Rain, shine, or snow, it never disappoints.

I found this tiny silver cup in Luxembourg a couple of weekends ago; isn’t it darling?

I’ve seen people use their riddling racks more creatively, but we just use ours for its intended purpose–storing wine. The wine is so good and so inexpensive over here!

Right after I took these photos, we got rid of my husband’s recliner and the couch…both had seen better days and the move overseas didn’t help. So next time I share a tour things will look completely different.

Our terrace is basically an extra living room during the warm months. We just leave the doors open all day long (German homes don’t have air conditioning). If you look at the top of the tree line you can see the Stuttgart TV tower that is one of the best-known city landmarks.

We eat out here every chance we get, and I’ll usually sit at the table while working away on my computer.

If you’d like to see more of our apartment, I’ll be sharing photos of the bedrooms next week. I also write a monthly Germany vs. the US post about the differences between the two cultures.