Boring bedrooms are one of the biggest challenges of renting an apartment. Whether you’re dealing with a serious lack of storage or a strict landlord who won’t let you hang anything on the walls, creating a bedroom that feels personalized, peaceful, and secure is so important in unsure times. And the solutions to these problems might be right under your nose (or head!).Value City Furniture™ is one of our favorite sources for beds that are more than just a place to snooze.

Boring bedrooms are one of the biggest challenges of renting an apartment. Whether you’re dealing with a serious lack of storage or a strict landlord who won’t let you hang anything on the walls, creating a bedroom that feels personalized, peaceful, and secure is so important in unsure times. And the solutions to these problems might be right under your nose (or head!).

For my entire adult life, dining rooms have been a foreign concept. An entire room? Devoted to just dining? That’s nonsense! Having a dining room seems like a pipe dream while living in a one-bedroom Manhattan walk-up, but I’ve learned there are some easy ways to create a cozy dining space even if you don’t have an entirely separate room for it.

For my entire adult life, dining rooms have been a foreign concept. An entire room? Devoted to just dining? That’s nonsense! Having a dining room seems like a pipe dream while living in a one-bedroom Manhattan walk-up, but I’ve learned there are some easy ways to create a cozy dining space even if you don’t have an entirely separate room for it.

The living room is the darling of interior design. It’s the most central part of the home where we relax, unwind, and enjoy our downtime, both alone and with friends. But despite how much, well, living we do in the living room, it’s also the space that tends to have the most design problems. From lack of space to an uninspiring layout, it’s easy to fall into a living room rut. If you’re in one, we can help you get out of it.

The living room is the darling of interior design. It’s the most central part of the home where we relax, unwind, and enjoy our downtime, both alone and with friends. But despite how much, well, living we do in the living room, it’s also the space that tends to have the most design problems. From lack of space to an uninspiring layout, it’s easy to fall into a living room rut. If you’re in one, we can help you get out of it.

Whether it’s after buying your first home or settling into a new apartment, there comes a time when all of us start getting real about investing in “forever” furniture. You know the pieces — a bed that can survive more than one move, or a designer accent chair you’ve loved for years and know will be a keeper.If you’re ready to invest in a forever piece, consider starting with a sofa.

Sometime in the mid-18th century the fourth Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, commissioned a new type of sofa. The resulting design, known for its trademark button tufting and rolled arms, has endured throughout the centuries, with variations making appearances in gentlemen’s’ clubs, fancy English homes, and maybe even your own living room.

If there’s one thing that instantly makes a holiday dinner feel like a fancier occasion, it’s an elegant tablescape. There’s a tendency to do something fussy or spend a lot of money on home decor, but it really takes little more than a few easily sourced materials to create a perfectly festive look. Here’s how we’ve created the striking, rustic tablescape you see above.Most Christmas tree vendors have lots of stray clippings…and nothing to do with them.

If it’s your first time hosting for the holidays, or even if you’re a seasoned expert, planning a dinner soirée or a simple cocktail party can feel like a lot. This time of year, we like to remind ourselves that it’s never as complicated as it seems, even if everyone is a lot busier and expectations are a bit higher. With a few years of holiday hosting under our belt, these are the things we’re trying to remember to keep it simple.

It’s just one room, but a kitchen redo comes with a ton of decisions, both big and small. It’s easy to get lost in the flurry of the big ones, like what layout works best or which countertops suit your style. But the devil is in the details. So, what’s the biggest rookie mistake we see time and time again? It may surprise you, but it’s choosing the wrong faucet!

Air purifier? Check. Natural cleaning products? Check. Wellness-inducing lighting? Hmm, that may be one area of your home you hadn’t considered giving the healthy treatment yet. The truth is, human beings need light to thrive, but the EPA now estimates we spend up to 90% of our time indoors — and most of it is under light that isn’t aligned with our biology.

If you haven’t already heard, it’s the most wonderful time of the year: Blu Dot’s big annual sale is on and going strong until October 27! With 20 percent off their entire site, it’s the ideal opportunity to hop on some of fall’s biggest trends. While all of Blu Dot’s designs are decidedly modern classics, some are so of-the-moment we couldn’t not call them out.

Mark your calendars for November 2, the best night of the year! Clocks turn back, meaning there’s an extra much-needed hour of rest and relaxation for us all. Fall is the perfect time of year to reset your sleep habits. In preparation for the longest night of the year, we partnered with the sleep experts at Nectar by Resident to round up easy tips for making the most of it, from mindful breathing to ensuring you have the right mattress for your sleep style.Do you stare at a screen all day?

Forget Pumpkin Spice Lattes. What really gets us excited every fall is Blu Dot’s Annual Sale. For just a few weeks each year, they offer all of their modern, cheeky designs at 20 percent off. It’s a big sale—and a big deal. So we sifted through their library of furniture, lighting, and more to find some of this year’s best buys. But hurry, because the sale ends October 27.No matter how small your space, a cozy reading/thinking/meditating nook is a must-have.

When I lived in a walk-up in Greenwich Village, the building staircase was so narrow that even a neighbor carrying groceries home could completely block traffic. Obviously, this made moving in a challenge. My roommate went so far as hiring someone to cut his bed in half, move it up the tiny staircase, and reassemble it upstairs. I elected to sleep on an air mattress. Needless to say, we both could have used The Bed, by Thuma. As its name implies, The Bed is not a regular bed.

Happy linen season!

We’re not finger waggers here, so we will not start off by telling you you should be getting seven to eight hours of sleep most nights. We will, however, tell you that you need to be getting quality sleep, especially if it’s a little harder to get the right quantity. A simple sleep-quality test is if you’re getting close to the famous seven to eight hours but you’re still tired during the day, then you’re likely not getting a good night’s sleep.

We’re not finger waggers here, so we will not start off by telling you you should be getting seven to eight hours of sleep most nights. We will, however, tell you that you need to be getting quality sleep, especially if it’s a little harder to get the right quantity. A simple sleep-quality test is if you’re getting close to the famous seven to eight hours but you’re still tired during the day, then you’re likely not getting a good night’s sleep.

Imagine a Tetris game where every single shape was exactly the one you needed in that moment. In the game of living room layouts, that scenario exists, and we call it a sectional. This versatile superhero sets up a space for big parties and cozy Netflix binges alike. Add in a choice of fabrics and colors and you’ve got thousands of configurations to set up whatever living room you want to live in. So, where to begin?

Imagine a Tetris game where every single shape was exactly the one you needed in that moment. In the game of living room layouts, that scenario exists, and we call it a sectional. This versatile superhero sets up a space for big parties and cozy Netflix binges alike. Add in a choice of fabrics and colors and you’ve got thousands of configurations to set up whatever living room you want to live in. So, where to begin?

Considering that most of us at Apartment Therapy consider spring cleaning our favorite national holiday, this may come as a surprise: Even we have some spots in our homes that we regularly miss, overlook, or just plain ignore. But this is the year we break the cycle! We’re keeping these seven little trouble spots on our mind as we set off on spring deep clean—which, fortunately, are all laughably easy tasks.

Summer’s over (boo!). But there’s so much to look forward to in the fall and winter. Namely, one of our favorite pastimes: doing nothing. Human “hibernation” is totally a thing, and it may actually help us recover and recuperate. This is the time to start building your den of coziness, where your main activity will be telling Netflix you’re still watching from time to time.

Spring cleaning: It’s a big annual ritual that we actually kind of love, but it doesn’t have to become an overwhelming task that eats up an entire weekend. With little more than an all-purpose cleaner, a good spray mop, and 10 minutes a day, you can keep a mostly clean house year-round so that when the big weekend does come around…it won’t be so big.Making the bed is one of the most powerful things you can do first thing in the morning.