Tour a Digital Nomad's Tiny Paris Apartment + Get Affordable Decorating Tips

As a digital nomad, a travel influencer and an author, Damon Dominque has spent most of the last few years living out of a suitcase. While there are definitely perks to such an adventurous lifestyle, it's not exactly easy, or practical, to decorate each place in a string of short-term rentals to suit your own style.

I know this firsthand. A few years ago, I moved out of my apartment in Boulder, Colorado, packed a big duffel bag, and hit the road as a freelance travel writer. But after a few years of trying to create a sense of home that fits inside a backpack, I missed quite a lot about having a more stationary life. I've since settled in London.

Damon, too, has now found a long-term home base. While he still travels quite a lot, he now comes back home to this gorgeous apartment in Paris, a city that has captivated him since he was a teenager. I asked him to show us around and share his best tips for creating a sense of home on the road. But even if you're moving to a new home across the street from where you've lived for 20 years, you might just find these tips resonate with you, too.

Damon's apartment has high ceilings with tall windows and no shortage of natural light. He's always loved gallery walls, he says, so he created this one with artwork he mostly found at thrift stores and flea markets. He shops secondhand for two main reasons: First, it keeps down the cost of decor. Second, he doesn't get as attached to things. "Everything in here, I'm ready to throw out if I need to," he says, so he's ready to pack up and hit the road again whenever the mood strikes. "I'm attached to it in the sense that I find it aesthetically pleasing, but I don't need to keep it. While my place might look like I'm a hoarder in training, I also feel like I'm a minimalist in the way that I don't feel attached to objects, because I got them all at the thrift store."

That mirror against the back wall? It's the true embodiment of one person's trash becoming another's treasure. Damon found it on a visit to Paris about 6 years ago, in a trash can. "I was just looking out the window, down the courtyard, and I saw this beautiful orange mirror," he says. "I went down and picked it up and put it in my Airbnb." He stashed it in an ex-boyfriend's basement for about two years while he traveled. When he moved back to Paris, he retrieved it and painted it white.

When you move into a new place, Damon says, you have a few months of a honeymoon phase to get your design and decor in order. "I feel like when you're designing your apartment, you have about three months," he says. "You have three months because you're excited you're in a new place, and then whatever your apartment looks like after three months, that's what it's gonna look like."

It was during that three-month "sprint" to decorate his new place that he went on a hunt for a green desk blotter like this one. He wanted to thrift one but couldn't find what he was looking for, so he caved and ordered one from Amazon. Of course, "I go to a flea market that next weekend and I find the perfect one," he says. Luckily, they fit perfectly together and the layering provides a great bonus effect.

Although much of his decor is made up of spontaneous purchases from flea markets, Damon's apartment also includes a few intentional buys like this basin on the left, which Damon envisioned as a decorative pot for a shrub.

He hunted around markets looking for something like this and then eventually gave up and ordered one online. It arrived cracked and he glued it back together, pleased with its added character. "I feel like you have to give yourself a deadline," Damon says of hunting for a specific item. "If not, you're just going to keep going. I was at the point where I probably went to six or seven weekend flea markets in a row."

Damon calls this marble bust the “green baby," and it's one of the few items of decor in the apartment for which he really splurged. When he saw it, he absolutely had to have it, he says, even though it's not exactly suitcase-friendly. The chic wooden ladder against the back wall doubles as decor when it's not in use for the lofted bed on the opposite wall.

The floor-to-ceiling shelves in this corner were tricky to decorate, Damon says. He left many of them empty on purpose. "You really underestimate how to make a shelf look good," he says. Like many of the other items in his flat, including the furniture, most of these came from secondhand vendors.

Whenever he travels, Damon makes a point to go out and buy a local magazine. It's a simple thing to do, but it goes a long way to creating a sense of home. It's partly nostalgic for him, he says. His mother always had magazines coming to the house when he was a kid growing up in Indiana, so having one around reminds him of home. It's also the ultimate digital nomad design accessory: it's cheap, portable, recyclable and also makes a great only-in-(insert wherever you traveled) souvenir if you want to bring it home. You can read and enjoy it, learn a bit about the local culture, carry it with you and easily recycle it when you move on so it doesn't weigh you down.

Looking for international magazines to add to your own collection without the need for a passport? Stack sends you different independent, English-language magazines every month, sourced from all over the world.

In contrast with the vintage decor elsewhere in his apartment, Damon's wood and stainless steel kitchen has a more modern feel. His bedroom is in the loft just above here, and at first, he wasn't sure what to do with the space. "I'm more of a vintage, retro, quirky dude, so having very modern things is new for me," he says. "I was like, OK, well I'm not gonna be able to change this, this is the landlord's style, so what can I do?"

The solution? Lean in. Damon decided to go for a minimalist look in this part of his apartment.

Even though he now has a more permanent home base, Damon still hesitates to buy things that are neither suitcase-friendly nor budget-friendly secondhand purchases. "That's always the question on a digital nomad's mind: How long am I gonna stay here?" he says. Moving around internationally also comes with the added challenge of ending up with appliances that are incompatible with the electrical sockets in the countries you're moving between. "I was going to buy a vacuum the other day, but then I'm like, 'Well, who knows? Maybe I'll want to go to Australia,'" he jokes. "So yes, that's definitely very present in my mind."

When he travels to other cities he'll only be in for a few weeks or months, Damon doesn't decorate the way he has designed his base in Paris. But he does still think about how to make a space his own, even if it's just a hotel room. His top two tips for creating a sense of home on the road are investing in a good candle to burn while you're in, and getting a small houseplant or two, which are generally easy to leave behind when you head back home.

Damon's bedroom is an open loft above his kitchen, accessed by a small ladder. The posters leaning against the back wall are vintage maps. He never ended up hanging them anywhere, but they seemed like a no-brainer when he first spotted them at a flea market. "When I first came here, the apartment was empty, it was all white," Damon says. "I was like, 'I need to make this my style. What am I about?' I love to travel." The maps were a spontaneous purchase, and the fact that they seemed to have a story about them made them all the more alluring.

Having mirrors in the flat's hallway helps this space feel brighter and more open. And just like nearly everything else Damon has showed us, the closet to the left is filled with — what else — thrifted clothing. "Everything, everything is from thrift stores in my life," he says. "I also think that's cool. If I have one thing that I have a hard time getting rid of, it's good clothes from all around the world."

Having soft, warm lighting in your home can dramatically improve a space and make you feel more at ease. That's a big part of the reason why Damon lights candles in his home and travels with one or buys one at his destination when he's on the road. "I think lighting is important," he says. "A candle helps with that and creates nice lighting."

Even if you're renting, you can easily upgrade the lighting in your home by swapping out a few lightbulbs for warmer options or changing out removable fixtures for styles that suit you better. This can be especially important in a space without windows, like a bathroom or office. See more suggestions here for managing light and shadows from designer Melissa Lee.

When Damon first saw this apartment, the loft to the right was being used as a storage space. But it had potential as a second sleeping area, so Damon has it available for the occasional guest. While he didn't make any structural changes to this flat after moving in, you might consider building in a loft like this to capitalize on space if you own your own place. Underneath the loft is the entryway to the apartment and a closet. Having the entryway a bit more hidden also makes this room seem more elegant and homey.