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March 9, 2016

Use This Cool Paperweight for Efficient Decision Making

The city's fast paced environment presents a myriad of challenges on a daily basis -- Should I take the express or local train? Is that apartment worth the extra $300 a month? When should I start looking for a new job? Now, instead of letting the stress eat you alive, make these difficult choices with this cool Decision Paperweight.
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March 8, 2016

Giant Tic-Tac-Toe Set Transforms Any Patio Into a Playground

Spring has almost sprung, and we can hardly wait to get out of the apartment and out in the wilds of our backyards—or our friend's backyard. Regardless of how you get there, outdoor gatherings are always better with a friendly game of tic-tac-toe, especially when you're playing with giant Xs and Os. This beautiful set was designed by Jeremy Exley and is sure to bring the right amount of friendly competition to your next outdoor event.
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March 7, 2016

Office Cocoon Promotes Privacy and Productivity in any Environment

Staying focused at work can be challenging for a variety of different reasons, from the coworker who screams on personal calls to the colleague who chews gum with his mouth open, but this clever piece of office furniture is here to help you keep your head in the game (literally and figuratively). Tomoko, designed by MottoWasabi, is an acoustic dome that promotes privacy and concentration in open-plan offices, lobbies, and other public spaces, so you can physically create your own office no matter what your surroundings are.
more on the design here
March 2, 2016

Bring Tomorrow’s Weather Indoors With Tempescope

Weather in New York is anything but predictable these days, with 60-degree days followed up by below-freezing winds. But while fluctuating temps have been irksome, we've found a fun little gadget that makes unpredictable weather a serene and beautiful thing. Meet Tempescope, an ambient physical display devised by Ken Kawamoto that physically visualizes impeding weather conditions like rain, clouds and lightning. The minimal device is designed to receive weather forecasts from the Internet and reproduce the next day's sky inside your home.
Learn more about this cool gadget
March 1, 2016

Kid’s Caravan Bed Provides the Excitement of an RV From the Comfort of Home

This funky kid's bed was designed to mimic a caravan, and we secretly wish they also made it in adult sizes! Not only is it cozy and playful, but it's also super functional and equipped to handle even the most rugged camper. The bed is packed full of hidden storage space including the helm as the perfect home for toys stuffed animals or blankets. Plus the base of the bed double as a full-sized pull-out drawer.
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February 29, 2016

10 Clever, Creative and Unexpected Storage Ideas for Apartment Dwellers

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
February 29, 2016

Chilean Design Firm Makes Beautiful Room Dividers From Sustainable Pine Fibers

Whether you live on an open-plan loft or tiny studio, you've probably, at least once, considered a reconfiguration of the space. Meet Ensamble, modular flexible room dividers, and the latest project by Chilean studio The Andes House. Lightweight, flexible and low-cost, the panels are easy to assemble into a small office or separate micro-space and were crafted from a sustainable composite material made from pine fibers.
Learn more about Ensamble
February 25, 2016

Catissa Cat Tree Doubles As Stylish Wall Art

New Yorkers definitely love their cats, and now feline owners can give their beloved fur balls their very own urban oasis in the form of the Catissa cat tree. The stylish and modern cat furniture features four stories of lush cushioned sheepskin and can easily be mounted on the wall. The unit was designed to allow your cat to roam, play, climb and sleep at their leisure.
More on Catissa
February 24, 2016

What You Can Do If You’re Injured On Rental Property

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
February 21, 2016

Funky Desk Is Kid-Friendly and Has Secret Compartments

This funky table from furniture retailer Rafa Kids is cleverly designed to resemble the letter K when viewed from the side (hence its name, K Desk). The design also features rounded corners (to keep little noggins safe) and a useful lid that reveals a second table top when lifted. The underside of the lid also doubles as a bulletin board to hang drawings or photos.
More design details this way
February 18, 2016

Circular Wall Garden Takes Advantage of Your Home’s Vertical Space

It's widely known that house plants provide a myriad of benefits, but if you live in an urban area, it's likely that your floor and counter space are limited. Floral designer Kim Fisher has come up with an ingenious solution that can help you bring living greenery into your apartment (without needing to throw out the toaster to make room) with her sleek wall-hanging circular planter. And no green thumb is necessary -- the planter was designed specifically to hold succulents and airplants (all quite difficult to kill) -- and it's very easy to set up.
Find out how to get your own
February 17, 2016

Lacquered Coffee Table Was Inspired By a Japanese Noodle Box

Talented furniture designer Tracey Boyd gathers inspiration for her work by collecting ideas, experiences, and unique items found throughout her extensive travels. In the past, she's designed pieces based on salvaged drawer pulls from her hometown in England and ancient murals from across the world. Her Lacquered Cache Coffee Table, part of a collection with Anthropologie, is derived from the shape and function of a Japanese noodle bowl and is separated into four equal sections. Each quadrant opens to allow for additional storage within the table.
More on the table
February 16, 2016

Magic Wine Rack Makes Bottles Disappear

For over 20 years Tony Potter has been working and living as an illusionist and magician, but this renaissance-man-entertainer also has a passion for woodworking. Combining all his unique skills, he designed a wine rack called Pinetti that makes bottles appear to vanish. And while many of us don't need any help making wine disappear, it's still fun to see this seemingly standard wine rack do its magic.
Learn more about this tricky illusion
February 14, 2016

10 New York Couples Offer Up Their Design Tips for Peaceful Cohabitation

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
February 12, 2016

Circle Swinging Chair Brings Your Childhood Playground Inside the Office

Chairs come in all shapes and sizes, but more often than not they're simply four legs, a seat, and a back. But this standard form did not appeal to Polish designer Iwona Kosicka, as she recently introduced the world to SWING, her legless floating circle chair. This out-of-the-box design gracefully hangs from the ceiling and features refined woodwork, adding fun and sophistication to any room.
More on SWING
February 11, 2016

Beautiful Bathtub Is Made From Woven White Ash and Maple Veneer

Beautiful design comes in all shapes and sizes, but a bathtub carefully crafted from strips of wood veneer is not something you see everyday. From Israeli designer Tal Engel, this gorgeous bathtub known as Otaku is constructed from this very process by weaving together strips of white ash and maple veneer.
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February 10, 2016

New Furniture Collection Solves Our Spatially-Challenged Living Arrangements

Most New Yorkers are more than familiar with the trials and tribulations posed by our spatially-challenged living arrangements. However, with every one of life's obstacles, there's a potential opportunity waiting just under the surface. That's exactly what Parisian designer Gilles Belley intended to uncover when he was awarded a grant from VIA, a French organization promoting local design. With funding in hand, Gilles set out to research and develop furniture that would address the needs of modern city living. His solution includes a collection of three pieces formally titled "Rooms," which includes AREA, WALL and BLOCK, each designed to provide more flexibility for how we function in and define our living spaces.
Learn all about it
February 8, 2016

Moody Nest Is a Cuddly Wrap-Up Sofa Perfect for Hibernation

Not looking forward to this week's predicted wintery weather? Make the icy temps and slush-covered streets a little more bearable by coming home and cozying up with your sofa (this is also a great option if you'll be spending Valentine's Day solo). Moody Nest is Frankfurt-based designer Hanna Ernsting's pouf with a blanket that turns into the perfect place to hibernate.
Learn more about this cuddly sofa
February 4, 2016

Beautiful Coat Racks Made From the Burned Trunks of the Mangosteen Tree

As city dwellers, it's important to incorporate elements of nature into our daily lives so we don't become as stone-cold as the environment around us. That's just one of the many reasons we love this Yosemite Coat Rack made from the mangosteen tree, which bears the exotic purple fruit found in Indonesia. And who wouldn't want an enchanted forest greeting them at their front door?
The full story of the mangosteen tree
February 2, 2016

This Floating Persian Rug Is Actually a Sturdy Chair

If you're bored with all the standard seating options out there, this Carpet Chair will certainly perk you up. From Cyprus-based designer Stelios Mousarris, the wave-like furniture doubles as an optical illusion, taking on the form of a floating magic carpet, but functioning as a sturdy chair.
How does it do that?
January 29, 2016

Design Firms Launch Kickstarter for Hyper-Accurate,12-Foot-Long Model of Manhattan

Could this become the coolest New York souvenir ever? Two Manhattan-based design firms, TO+WN Design and AJSNY, have teamed up to sell a model of Manhattan that will blow all the others out of the water. Using detailed aerial scans of the city, the firms created a 12-foot-long model of Manhattan that represents every last landmark, skyscraper, brownstone, park and event hall. Impressively, they've managed to replicate current-day Manhattan down to a 1:5000-scale–and they're calling their mini Manhattan a "Microscape." If you want a piece of this, you're not the only one. The project's Kickstarter, which recently launched with an $8,000 goal, is already more than $17,000 funded with 26 days left.
Learn more about the microscape
January 28, 2016

Keep Track of Your World Travels With This Colorful Scratch-off Map

Whether you spend your days hopping from one city to the next or save up your vacation time for an epic yearly adventure, traveling is a great way to regroup and relax. Every new destination means new memories, and who doesn't want to keep track of the journey along the way? These two maps from will help you do just that while also adding some worldly decor into your living space. Both the Scratch Map and Scratch Map Deluxe feature a fun scratch-off surface that reveal vivid bursts of color with just a few coin swipes.
Find out more here
January 27, 2016

The USB Typewriter Brings the Old-School Word Processor Into the Digital Age

While functionally the typewriter is no longer necessary to get words onto paper, the aesthetic appeal of the old-school word processor is timeless. In addition to their retro good looks, typewriters are also fun to use, providing us with an ongoing sense of accomplishment as the carriage slides back into place with each new line of copy. Since the same cannot be said for our fancy computers, smartphones, and tablets, Philadelphia-based designer and engineer Jack Zylkin created the USB Typewriter to bring back the days when creating words and sentences also meant creating sound and movement. 
Find out more ahead
January 26, 2016

Sebastian Errazuriz’s Meticulously Crafted Chest Is an Interactive ‘Mahogani Explosion’

If you read 6sqft regularly, you probably know by now that we can't get enough of New York designer Sebastian Errazuriz's industrial designs. We've previously featured his quirky, spiky-skinned chest, a giant golden cow piñata on show in Sunset Park, and more recently, his yawning video installation looping in Times Square. If you haven't tired of him yet, get ready for another of his fantastical creations: Mahogani Explosion, a seemingly boring wooden chest that "explodes" to the sides as it’s opened.
Learn more about this explosive cabinet