Growing up, the only type of couches my family owned were futons. I thought they were the coolest — you could change the covers, they expanded for sleepovers, and they seemed much more modern than an overstuffed sofa. Nowadays futons are more often associated with dorm rooms than cool furniture. However, there's no denying a futon's small space convenience. Here are a few convertible options for your post-collegiate home.

I love bedrooms that are well-styled, but I also love the clean simplicity of a bed that looks like it's seriously meant for sleeping in, with cloud-like crisp white bedding and a few downy pillows. 

In a little studio apartment like mine, it seems absurd to waste perfectly good shelf space on frivolities and fripperies, and yet that's exactly what I've done...and it makes me happy every day. 

When a friend told me he was considering planting two trees to celebrate the birth of his friends' new baby twins, I must admit I swooned. Birth-trees! Such a sweet idea, but there are a few things to consider...

The other day I was chatting with a friend of mine who's about to move cross-country for grad school. She'll be going from a spacious house shared with roommates, to a tiny city studio all her own. The concept of living and working (with a dog, no less) in one open-plan space was understandably challenging her, and we starting talking about ways she could make her new home, all 400 square feet of it, work for her all her needs. 

It seems like just yesterday I was bemoaning how much it was going to cost to move my stuff across the country, and yet here I am, still buying more stuff...

Q: My husband and I are planning a cross country move this summer and have started comparing options for getting only our bare essentials to the other coast. I've read a lot of helpful articles and comments on this site about moving companies vs. shipping, shipping USPS vs. Amtrack, etc. With most of these options, the cost is based on the total weight of my items, and there's the problem; how the heck do I figure out how much everything weighs? 

High Fidelity keeps coming up in conversation, and it's made me think of this exchange between Rob and Laura: "And then I come home, and there´s no lingerie and..." "I have lingerie." "Yes, you do. You have great lingerie, but you also have the cotton underwear that´s been washed a thousand times, and it´s hanging on the thing.." I'd like to avoid that exchange.

No really, I'm asking, because I'm at a bit of a loss here.  

Have you ever heard the opinion ceilings should always be white? Or that there's a secret formula for the optimal number of throw pillows? Why play by the standards of long-gone generations of amateur decorators when you can start anew with a fresh set of un-rules for how to set up your space, especially when it comes to your home office?