Fostered by 30 households, he rents a villa to grow plants and lives alone with 25 cats

Like most people, after graduating in April, I've always rented. But my friends and I all hold one belief: the house is rented, but life is your own.

So every time we move, we spend some time carefully arranging everything. It's tiring, but seeing the results each time fills us with a sense of accomplishment.

But compared to April's friend Chen Youxin, my little achievements are nothing worth mentioning. He rented a 4-story villa in Hangzhou, moved a plant garden and a pond into the home, and keeps 25 cats and one dog, all while living there alone.

Today, let's take you to his home to pet the cats~

Cutting window paper together on a sunny day

 Cutting window paper together on a sunny day

Cheng Bi 

00:00/04:21

{Peony Girl Vol.824 }

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Come on, let's go pet the cats

When it comes to renovating a rented house, some people object, saying you can just live in a rented place however you like, and spending money on renovations is a waste.

But Chen Youxin doesn't think so. Not only did he renovate, he knocked down walls, moved a plant garden and a pond into the home, and lives comfortably with 25 cats, one dog, and just himself.

Chen Youxin is a perfumer. He graduated from the China Academy of Art, then went to the UK to study scent therapy. Four years ago, he returned to Hangzhou and found this house.

It's in Xihu District, Hangzhou, at the border between the city and the scenic area, also near his alma mater, the Academy of Art. The natural environment is great, and it comes with two courtyards, front and back, which is rare. Chen Youxin fell in love with it at first sight, rented it, and made it his home and studio.

The house is about 400 sq m, 4 floors in total,

Over four years, he made 5 renovations, large and small,

The rent is 10,000 yuan a month, and the renovation cost about 300,000 yuan.

The first floor is the perfuming studio,

There are two courtyards, north and south, with the entrance in the north courtyard,

As soon as you come in, you can see through the entire house at a glance.

The atrium was originally sealed off,

He knocked out three walls and added a sunroof,

Bringing outdoor natural light inside,

The whole room became a sunroom.

In the middle is a very large concrete platform,

It's Chen Youxin's workspace.

The bookshelf beside it sometimes also serves as a giant cat tree.

The north side of the second floor is also a work area,

The south side is specially reserved for the cats to live in,

There is a 4 m floor-to-ceiling window,

In winter, the cats and dog all love sunbathing here.

The third floor is his living space,

The north room has a ceiling height of 6 m,

Half of it was partitioned off to build a loft as the bedroom.

On the south side of the third floor, there is a lounge,

Friends can stay here for a short visit.

Chen Youxin has loved plants since childhood. In the south courtyard he grows 40 or 50 kinds of plants, mostly eucalyptus, pine, and lemon, and the home smells the same, very fresh, with an insect-repelling effect too.

Aromatic plants include lemongrass, rosemary, and thyme,

They can be used to extract essential oils.

In the north courtyard, some climbing plants are grown,

Usually wisteria blooms in March and April,

The one in his courtyard is more free-spirited, blooming every June.

He also placed some raw wood in the house,

Made into tables and chairs.

He says,Whenever his body comes into contact with it,

He thinks of the feeling of sitting on tree branches as a child.

If I had to say which space in this house Chen Youxin likes most, it would definitely be the atrium. In the original design, he simulated the atrium as an indoor plant world.

White sand and gravel,

Paired with a few evergreen plants,

It has the feel of a dry landscape garden.

The glass sunroof at the top of the atrium,

Allows outdoor light to enter the interior directly,

More importantly, it lets the plants carry out good photosynthesis.

A water channel was also built on the sunroof,

Inside there is a water system, with fish and turtles kept in it.

When it rains, you can hear the sound of rain here,

Rainwater passes through the soil and seeps into the water,

Forming a unique little world.

The cats and dog also like to lie here,

Occasionally they even tease the fish in the pond.

Actually, at the beginning, Chen Youxin didn't plan to keep so many cats. He only kept 3 Exotic Shorthairs. Later, friends brought over cats they couldn't keep and stray cats they had picked up, and the number of cats grew and grew, now 25 in total!

The earliest three cats are of the "Fu" generation,

Quite festive, named Fuqi, Fulai, and Furong,

Then the names gradually extended to food,

For example, the one the color of rice, named Rousong,

The white one with black, named Tangyuan, Mochi...

The first thing Chen Youxin does when he gets up every day,

Is pet the cats, then scoop their poop.

The amount of poop from 25 cats is pretty astonishing,

They eat 30 kg of cat food a month,

Every day about 10-plus kg of waste is scooped out.

Many people worry about cats shedding hair, and Chen Youxin solved it,

He placed a great many air purifiers in the house,

To completely deal with cat hair in the air,

Hair on the floor is handled by a robot vacuum, set on a timer.

As for the dog Awu, it's a Weimaraner he adopted last year,

When Awu was little, it got a terminal illness and was abandoned by its owner,

Chen Youxin saw how pitiful it was and wanted to save it as much as possible,

After 3 months of treatment at the hospital, it was almost cured.

To avoid cats and dogs fighting,

He separated the living spaces of the cats and the dog.

So the dog moves around on the first floor, and the cats stay upstairs and rarely come down,

Of course there are also bolder cats that will beat up the dog.

Many people will surely think that putting so much thought into a rented house means either being foolish or having too much money. In fact, the reason Chen Youxin spends so much effort creating a comfortable home is his childhood experience of being fostered.

When he was little, Chen Youxin's parents ran a business and were extremely busy with work, with almost no time to care for him and his older sister, so they often placed us with various relatives and friends. Before age 18, he lived in more than 30 foster households, and it was hard to have personal space, or pets.

The foster care experience in childhood made him very sensitive to changes in his surroundings. Different families had different smells, and that also became creative inspiration for him as a perfumer.

He was once fostered with a family in an old Hangzhou residence,

There was a fig tree in the courtyard,

The smell of it soaked by rain,

Is his entire memory of childhood.

Perfuming, making candles, making dried flowers,

These are all ways Chen Youxin preserves memories,

And also a kind of healing for himself.

When he's alone, he will light some candles,

And do things he usually can't keep up with,

Such as writing a diary.

On weekend evenings,

Friends come over to have dinner and watch movies.

Many people think it's not worth putting so much thought into a rented house, but his childhood foster care experience made him especially seek the stability of home.Even if it's a temporary dwelling, it should be made as comfortable as possible.

Now with cats and a dog, he's even more tied to home. Even when traveling far, he keeps thinking of them.

Maybe some people want to say, he has money, so he can rent a big house and spend a lot of money renovating it into the way he likes.

But April thinks the attitude toward life has nothing to do with money,Even in a 10 sq m home, you can pamper yourself with the things you like.

People who love life,

Even if they don't have the money to buy a villa or rent a villa,

Can still turn ordinary days into poetry.

END