Packing up to leave my flat in Paris halfway through my year abroad, I was struck by what a poor job I had done with decorating my room. I have always erred on the side of minimalism – the main features of my first room in college were suspicious carpet stains left by the previous inhabitant, and a stack of tupperware. From my point of view (shaped by deep-rooted laziness and a lack of sentimentality), there was no point in decorating when I would have to clear the space in just over eight weeks’ time. No one was going to praise me for making it look nice, or tell me off for leaving it bare, so why bother? So, the plainness of my Parisian room was not out of character. Yet, it made me realise how much I missed the decorations my friends and I had put up in our second year flat, which helped transform it from a corridor of four bedrooms into a temporary home.

“I missed the decorations which helped transform it from a corridor of four bedrooms into a temporary home” 

That is not to claim that everything in the flat looked like it had been taken straight from a Pinterest board. The decorations ranged from good, to bad, to downright bizarre. The good: hand-painted records, crochet bunting, and soup-themed prints in honour of our tradition of cooking soup together every Sunday. The bad: embarrassing photos from C-Sunday, a rice cooker so big that the toaster had to be unplugged to make counter space for it, and dried dragon fruit peel which ended up looking less like potpourri and more like vaguely pink mould. And then, the bizarre: a Renee Rapp poster one of us had been gifted on a first (and last) date. 

Yet, it was not only the decorations which made the flat a community space, but also the traditions which were created and kept alive within it. Soup Sunday had been a staple since our first year, and having an oven in our flat kitchen hugely expanded the range of soups we could make. Having friends over for a cup of tea was a humble luxury I missed while living in a big city during my year abroad. When teatime came around, there were two teapots on offer. One was tasteful and understated, with bees and flowers painted over blue and white stripes. The other was American patriotism in crockery form: a yellow taxi with a bald eagle perched on the front, whose beak served disturbingly as the teapot's spout. 

Other flat activities included an astrology-themed birthday party, where everyone came dressed as a famous Aquarius in honour of the birthday girl's star sign. There were group viewings of reality TV in the early summer, when our reactions to the final episode of I Kissed a Girl were so enthusiastic that we got a (perhaps justified) noise complaint from our upstairs neighbour. In times of stress, Dobble would be brought out, and anxious energy would be released through playing such an unavoidably competitive card game. And, of course, there were the post night-out debriefs, with the dulcet tones of Mellow Magic Radio providing a soothing background soundtrack. 

“Coming back to a warm flat complete with friendly faces and easy conversation is enough to brighten any grey Cambridge day”

Playing music without worrying about disgruntled neighbours was another advantage that came with living in a flat. We would queue up songs by Take That, Bruno Mars and Chappell Roan when getting ready to go out, or put on our joint Spotify playlist when eating dinner together. The musical theatre soundtracks were reserved for when the musical-averse members of the flat were out, leaving two of us free to sing the duets from Hamilton to our heart's content. 

Through the lens of nostalgia, it is easy to conclude that sharing a flat with your friends in your 20s is what life is all about. Coming back after a particularly tricky day of essay-writing, or an especially cold early morning training session, to a warm flat complete with friendly faces and easy conversation is enough to brighten any grey Cambridge day. Our university accommodation system works in strange and inconvenient ways, and it can certainly be hard to find the motivation to decorate when you know that everything must be taken down two months later. But if there is anything that my flatmates have taught me, it is the value of putting effort into turning a house into a home,  and that is something I will never forget. 

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