Small Space
The Best Cordless Table Lamps for Small Apartments: Run Time, Brightness and the Charging Habit
The best cordless table lamp for most small apartments is one you can charge with a phone cable and forget about for a few evenings.
Small Space
Nelson Cigar Lamp Alternatives for Renters: The Mid-Century Glow Without the Electrician
The best Nelson Cigar lamp alternative for a rental is a plug-in cigar sconce, because you get the soft, up-and-down glow without opening a wall.
Small Space
The Best Mushroom Lamps, From an $8.99 IKEA Mini to the $645 Panthella (and What You Get in Between)
The best mushroom lamp for most small apartments is a compact one with a wide dome that sends light down onto the table and softly around the room.
Small Space
The Best Smart Bulbs for Renters: No Hub, No Rewiring, and Bulbs You Can Take When You Move
The best smart bulb for most renters is one that works over Wi-Fi with no hub, so you can screw it into a lamp, set it up from your phone, and take it with you when you move.
Small Space
Layered Lighting in a Small Apartment: The 3-Layer Rule That Fixed My 480 Sq Ft
One ceiling light bright enough for a stadium, and a room I avoided. Three layers at three heights, four lamps, $281, and the ceiling light off since move-in week.
Small Space
480 Sq Ft Apartment Tour: How I Made a North-Facing Brooklyn Rental Feel Designed
Fourth apartment in five years and the first one guests call designed. Four hundred and eighty north-facing square feet, six colors, every light off the ceiling, nothing screwed in but two swag hooks. The tour and the numbers.
Small Space
Dark Accent Wall in a Small Apartment: The Warm Light Formula That Makes It Look Bigger
Everyone said don't paint a wall dark in 480 square feet. I did, with a 2700K sconce beside it and the ceiling light off, and the room reads four feet deeper. The formula, the color and the mistakes.
Small Space
Apartment Entryway Ideas for Apartments That Don't Have One: The 18-Inch Entry
My front door opens 18 inches from the sofa. A $60 console, a round mirror and a plug-in sconce on a timer, and guests say the apartment has a real entry. Three objects, nothing screwed, $230.
Small Space
The Best Plants for Dark Apartments: What Survived My North-Facing Brooklyn Rental
Four plants alive in a north-facing apartment with no direct sun, six that died, and one grow bulb in an ordinary lamp that changed the odds. What survived, where, and why.
Small Space
Apartment Decorating Tips From a Graphic Designer: Six Principles Off the Page
Four years of design school and three at an agency, and I'd been decorating my apartments with none of it until a poster layout made it click. Six principles, off the page and onto 480 square feet.
Small Space
Sofa for a Small Apartment: The Three Measurements Before You're Allowed to Like It
My first sofa took six hours and a door off its hinges to get in, and it's in my sister's house now. Three measurements, one card on the inside of my phone case, and the 62-inch sofa that fit.
Small Space
How to Choose a Lamp That Lasts: The Four Checks a $30 Lamp Fails
Six $30 lamps in three years, every one replaced, the last one on the floor. Four checks in a shop that separate a lamp that lasts from one that lands in the trash, and the arithmetic that made me stop.
Small Space
Studio Apartment Layout Ideas: How I Made 320 Square Feet Feel Like Three Rooms
Two years in a 320-square-foot studio and the trick was zones with no walls: two bookshelves back to back, three rugs that don't touch, and two sconces that turned a bed into a bedroom at 11 pm.
Small Space
What Size Rug for a Small Living Room? The Measurements That Matter (and Why 5x8 Is Usually Wrong)
I bought the 5 by 8 first. It sat in front of the sofa like a bath mat for a year. The 8 by 10, the tape-on-the-floor test, and the rule about legs.
Small Space
Small Balcony Ideas for an Apartment: What I Did With a 4x6 Foot NYC Balcony for Under $400
A 'private outdoor terrace' that was a concrete slab with a drain. Floor, two chairs, three pots, one light: the plainest version, which is the one that worked.
Small Space
Renter Friendly Living Room Lighting: The Three Pieces I've Used in Three Apartments
The same arc lamp, sconce and pendant in three apartments with three floor plans, and each living room looked like the same person lived there. What changes with the room, what never does, and the one hole per apartment.
Small Space
Apartment Lighting Ideas: 12 Things a Graphic Designer Notices in Your Living Room
I can't turn off the designer's eye when I walk into a friend's apartment. Twelve things I notice, in order, and twelve fixes that together cost less than a dinner out. The first one is free.
Small Space
Cozy Winter Lighting for an Apartment: The Seasonal Shift I Do Every October
A north-facing apartment loses its daylight at 4:30 in December. Four changes and $30, and the apartment has a winter setting: warmer, lower, on earlier and more of it, all from a shoebox in the closet.
Small Space
How to Host Guests in an Apartment Without a Guest Room: The Fifteen-Minute Kit
A friend from Portland stayed four nights on my sofa bed in 480 square feet and called it a hotel. It's a mattress topper, a rechargeable sconce beside the sofa and a towel on a hook, all from one box in the closet.