The Latest: May 3, 2019

Amanda and Chris Covo spent eight months renovating their 1920s bungalow, also known as the Sallie Johnson House. Johnson was a freed slave and her home is now a historic landmark in East Austin, Texas. (You can listen to Sallie’s narrative here.) When the couple first saw this house, it was completely run down.

Every New Yorker dreams of living in a beautiful pre-war building with beautiful pre-war details, but sometimes the reality is less exciting. Hari and Kaity loved a lot of things about their one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, but the living room was a bit, well, dull. So they set about making a few changes — small, budget-friendly upgrades that nevertheless made a big difference.

Coloring inside the lines has never felt so bold.

Interior designer and stylist Brett and her husband Brandon bought a 1900s Craftsman house in Oakland, California in March of last year, but they couldn’t move in right away. The architectural charm was immediately obvious, but it also needed a lot of work. A renovation was definitely in the cards.

For almost ten years, John lived in his Hell’s Kitchen co-op while it slowly crumbled around him. The apartment, built in 1923, was definitely showing signs of its age: plaster was falling off the walls, moldings were caked with years of paint, and the kitchen cabinets, which had been replaced sometime in the 90s, were starting to fall apart. Faced with all this, and with the prospect of his partner, Katherine, moving in with him soon, John decided it was time for some big changes.

Being a DIY weekend warrior is a bit easier when you have fresh ventilation, room to spread out, and a place to put all that sawdust. But if you don’t have a garage, workshop, backyard, or driveway at home, don’t say goodbye to DIY. It’s possible to get crafty, even if you’re a renter living in a multi-unit building. Need proof? Jess Goodwin filled her stylish small apartment in the middle of Chicago with hand-made projects — no garage, no problem.

If you love the look of an apron front (or farmhouse) sink, look no further than this handy guide, where we’ve rounded up 22 different sinks, in all kinds of different materials and price points. No matter your budget, you’re sure to find a sink that will be a complete showstopper in your kitchen. Before you shop, here’s something you should know about apron front sinks right off the bat: they’re not cheap.

If you’ve ever found yourself a bit dismayed by a remodel where the homeowners took a perfectly serviceable kitchen and subjected it a complete gut renovation, then this project is for you. Instead of starting from scratch, Lindsay and Matt made just a few small changes to their Brooklyn kitchen, creating a fresh, modern space with a minimum of hassle (and a minimal budget).

Lindsay and Matt, the Brooklyn homeowners who brought a light touch to the renovation of their less than exciting kitchen, took the same approach toward their apartment’s somewhat generic bathroom. It had been recently renovated, and they were on a pretty serious budget, so a complete overhaul wasn’t in the cards. Instead, they made a few small changes that made this little bathroom much more fresh — and much more functional.

The wheel of design is always turning, and at no time is this more delightful than when something you remember from your childhood as being particularly dowdy is suddenly the height of chic. My mother’s sandals and culottes are suddenly for sale at Urban Outfitters, and similarly, the floors of my parents’ house are the hottest new thing in design. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to terrazzo.

Mosaic tile floors are having a renaissance. Of course, as many of you will point out, they never really left — lots of bathrooms, including the one in my New York studio, have floors like this that have been there for years. So these floors are not so much a trend as a classic that’s getting a (well deserved) moment in the spotlight. The bona fides of this particular kind of floor are many: they’re classic, they’re beautiful, they work with almost any style of bathroom.

Clashing patterns, chipping paint, and mismatched furniture is far from unusual in Beijing’s rental market. But Becky Lane’s apartment in an older neighborhood near the city’s fashionable Sanlitun district was another ordeal entirely. Despite this apartment being at the higher end of her budget and in a state that would make most expats go running for the nearest renovated home, Becky said yes to renting.

Certain tools and equipment are expensive. Like, really expensive. I think it’s safe to say that absolutely no one on the planet wants to actually buy an industrial carpet cleaner for thousands of dollars, for example, let alone find a place to store it when they’re done. Unless you use these types of things all the time, it doesn’t make any sense to own them outright, which is why we’re thankful for temporary rentals.