You want the reader to go along with you, to feel as if they are there, with the character of the book. Right?
You want to SHOW them the story. TELLING them the story as they read is boring.
I can TELL you how the map of the US eastern coastline looks like. But don’t you know much more if I SHOW it to you?
In the small room Sarah used for her bedroom, there were only the bed, a small trunk for her clothes and a short table for prayers.
The bed, wedged between the two walls, took up all the space along the left side. The right side of the room held a curtainless window beneath which sat the small prayer table, its natural chestnut wood unvarnished. Between the two walls and opposite the door sat the wooden trunk holding most of Sarah’s clothing. That was all the bedroom could hold. Even then, the front of the truck showed smoothed sections where the door–as it swung open and closed–had scraped it repeatedly over the years.
I am rather fond of the second version, primarily because the smallness of the room becomes a point in a discussion later. I need the reader to have in their mind this small room that Sarah retires to at the end of each day. If the room never came up again in a scene, I’d probably not elaborate that much. I might instead focus on the direction the window faced, since it faced the Abbey and she could see the bell tower, something that does come up later.
Can a story have too much details? Can the reader be presented with too many descriptions? Does the reader actually care or do they only want to skim ahead to the sex scene or the sword fight?