By Gabrielle Montoute, Tue, April 5, 2016 6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week, Gabrielle Montoute of Fueled, a digital product design and development incubator, shares six ways to create a rustic interior in your apartment without spending a lot of money.
If you haven’t noticed, rustic is all the rage. From restaurants to weddings to clothes, it’s all about taking something old and giving it new life—or taking something new and making it look vintage. While recreating this style at home may seem like an expensive undertaking, it’s only deceptively so. We’ve dissected the trend and determined six simple and inexpensive ideas that will help you achieve this look at home.
All of them here
By Kristen Chuber, Wed, March 23, 2016 6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week, the pros from Paintzen (“the Uber for painting”) share some easy and affordable ways to transform an apartment using just paint.
With the countless other tasks on New Yorkers’ agendas, finding time to do some interior upgrading can seem daunting. But thankfully, there are some quick and easy fixes that you can do – in the smallest of apartments and over the busiest of weekends – that require nothing more than paint. From simple accent walls and chalkboard paint to more funky techniques like ombre walls and patterns, here are 12 tips for transforming your space with paint.
All the tips, this way
By Annie Doge, Tue, March 15, 2016 6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week we offer up ideas for decorating exposed brick walls without drilling.
Exposed brick is one of the most common architectural elements in NYC apartments — even otherwise bland spaces often feature the material. Though it offers tons of character, it can make decorating quite challenging since drilling into brick isn’t the easiest task. Renters especially have a tough time, as putting holes in a brick wall can be a big no-no for landlords. But 6sqft has come up with 10 ways to dress up such walls, no drill necessary. Thanks to decor like string lights and ladders, you’ll never have to stare at a blank brick wall again.
See all the ideas ahead
By Diane Pham, Mon, March 14, 2016 With rising real estate prices and shrinking spaces, flex apartments are growing in popularity with roommates, couples and families who are looking to add another room but can’t afford to move into a larger space. Flex apartments, for those who are unfamiliar, are typically a studio, one-bedroom or two-bedroom unit large enough to be converted up one level with the addition of a pressurized wall. However, while many listings will tout being flex as an added bonus, this is not always the case. Ahead we’ll go over why the ability to legally flex an apartment has become increasingly difficult, and what you need to consider if you’re seriously thinking about buying or renting a flex apartment.
HOW TO ENSURE YOUR FLEX APARTMENT IS FLEXIBLE…
By Diane Pham, Thu, March 3, 2016 Image of One57 © Wade Zimmerman courtesy of Agence Christian de Portzamparc (ACDP)
“For whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell.”
Most folks outside the architecture and real estate industries are likely to believe that putting up a new skyscraper is simply about finding an empty lot to build up. However, those in the know understand that it takes much more than a stretch of space and a good engineer to lock in neck-craning heights. So, how do developers squeeze ever more building onto small lots? Two words: air rights.
Ahead we will go through the history of air rights in New York City and how imaginative but completely lawful interpretations of zoning laws have opened up the city skyline to crazy tall towers like One57 and 432 Park (“You can be really creative the way you snake your way around the block,” says Thomas Kearns, Partner at Olshan Law Firm). We’ll also find out just how much owners of Manhattan’s precious air space can squeeze out of developers that want to build big.
LEARN MORE ABOUT AIR RIGHTS IN NYC…
By Alyssa Alimurung, Mon, February 29, 2016 6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week we offer up spots in your apartment that may be underutilized as storage.
Unless you’re living in a mega-mansion with amazing closet space, chances are your belongings are scattered across your apartment and overstuffed into drawers and cabinets. With spring right around the corner, you may want to rethink how you’ve been tackling clutter at home. Below we’ve rounded up 10 clever, creative and unexpected storage ideas that you can put into action in your apartment right now.
Spring cleaning organization this way
By Tom J. Moverman, Wed, February 24, 2016 Our ongoing series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week Tom J. Moverman, partner at the Lipsig Law Firm, a practice specializing in personal injury, joins 6sqft to offer up tips on how to avoid injuries on a rental property, and what to do if they do occur.
In New York City, Manhattan remains the dominating force when it comes to new apartment construction. However, in recent years, boroughs such as Brooklyn have closed that gap considerably. According to BuildingCongress.com, Manhattan accounted for 37 percent of all of the apartment construction in New York City, and in Brooklyn, construction accounted for 36 percent of the rental property construction activity in the city. By the middle of 2015, there had been $10.5 billion in residential construction throughout the entire city of New York (to give an idea as to how much the volume has increased, there was just $11.9 billion in residential construction in all of 2014). With an increase in construction comes an increase in tenant injuries.
When volume increases, the demand to get new buildings up and generating revenue quickly also increases, and this means that corners will often be cut to make sure that rents from tenants can be collected in time to start showing a profit. Unfortunately, people can get injured when corners are cut, and tenants need to know how to protect themselves and fight back.
find out more here
By Diane Pham, Sun, February 14, 2016 Our ongoing series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, this week 6sqft asked 10 couples for tips on how to cohabit peacefully together.
Living with anyone takes a lot of work—days are more often than not highlighted with squabbles over the toilet seat being left up than googly eyes over too many flowers and chocolates. Now throw in the fact that you’re probably squeezing into a tiny studio or a one-bedroom (if you’re lucky!), and one would think what you’ve really got is a one-way ticket to singledom. But creating a peaceful and stress-free home is possible by just implementing a few changes and making a few compromises.
While love may be anything but one-size-fits-all, these 10 New York City couples are sharing their tips on how they created a balanced home full of joy.
All the best tips and 10 of NYC’s cutest couples this way
By Jason Saft, Tue, October 20, 2015 6sqft’s series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week Compass broker Jason Saft takes us through the daunting task of staging an apartment for sale. Jason’s work has been featured in the New York Times and Forbes magazine (to name a few), and he has closed nearly 1,000 properties in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Over the last decade I’ve perfected a sales strategy that answers the four questions every person looking to sell their home asks—and should ask—when they’re searching out a real estate agent to represent them. How much is my home worth? How will you sell it at that number? What do you do differently? Why should I work with you? From research, strategy and timing, to leveraging my personal referral network, my specialty is cost-effective staging and design that creates something that stands out from the crowd. And nets the highest possible return on investment. So, whether you’re looking to sell a $450,000 studio or a $4,500,000 loft, working solo or with an agent, I’m happy to share what I believe are the most critical pieces of staging and listing.
Get Jason’s top tips this way
By Andrea Zlotowitz, Tue, October 13, 2015 6sqft’s new series Apartment Living 101 is aimed at helping New Yorkers navigate the challenges of creating a happy home in the big city. This week we take on framing artwork for the home without spending a lot of money.
If you’re familiar with 6sqft’s post 10 Great Places to Buy Affordable Art in New York City, then you’re probably now considering framing your new acquired artwork. Whether you are trying to get something framed, or you have a collection of frames just lying around, knowing how to approach the framing process will help make sure that your home decor and your efforts are on point. From where to find great frames on the cheap to creating your very own DIY editions from materials bought at your local hardware store, 6sqft has rounded up some inventive and inexpensive options to help you decorate your walls.
Start framing here
