DIY & Apartment Hacks

Every day, people from around the world fulfill their dream of moving to New York City. This city is for the strong, the talented, the dreamers, and the ambitious. It doesn’t matter how strong, talented, or ambitious you are though; you’ll need some helpful advice to survive. Putting these five tips to use could be the difference between officially calling yourself a New Yorker or retreating back to where you came from after just a few months.

It’s been a thrilling week here at MakeSpace. Over the weekend, Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, posted on his blog about how to use “travel-caching” to never check luggage again

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West just bought a brand new mansion in Hidden Hills, California, and it’s going to have you green with envy.

If you’re tight on space and looking to give your New York City apartment a rustic feel, DIY pallet furniture may be just what you need to improve your pad. Here are a few of our favorite ideas made from easily acquired wooden shipping pallets:

Brace yourselves, you record-collecting, Bob Dylan lovers of the world. It’s reported that nearly 150 original acetate recordings from one of the greatest musicians of our time have been found practically untouched on the top shelf of a dusty old closet in an apartment on West Houston!

Today in news items that make you aware of how absurd living in New York City is, the Huffington Post brings us the story of Theresa Roemer’s “Female Man-Cave” or the “She-Cave” as she calls it.

Cooking and entertaining in your minuscule kitchen, teensy living room, and a dining room that straight up doesn’t exist can be an exasperating process. In order to keep your dinner party happy and your sanity intact, there are a few precautions to take to guarantee that you’ll always be the host or hostess with the mostess.

Whether you’re adopting a dog, or just fostering the pooch until they can find a “forever” home, taking care of an energetic animal in a small apartment in New York City requires a whole lot of work in exchange for a little puppy love

You’re paying a lot of money for your apartment in New York City. If you’re lucky enough to have a decent view (or a window at all, for that matter), the last thing you want to do is block out the skyline with a noisy, ugly, fifty-pound air conditioner

Bike theft has become an obsession across the Internet. When it comes to locking up bikes, every tech and gadget website, athletic blog, and online store practically stages a nuclear war to test out the best of the best. And we’re not talking a 300-word list of “Bike Lock Dos and Don’ts.” We’re talking an extensively-researched, multiple-part, investigative article which tests the top bike locks against their ultimate enemy: the thieves themselves.

Here’s a story that’s sure to have you wishing you lived anywhere other than NYC! This one-acre private island on Putnam Lake is only an hour and a half drive from the city, and at $899,000, it’s a real bargain by New York standards. Here in the Big Apple, the average apartment goes for $1.4 million, and we can guarantee you it’s a lot smaller than this 5,600 square-foot, pre-war home. The estate has all the amenities of modern living like DSL and satellite television. Plus there’s a guest house! The only catch is that Putnam Lake has a ban on motorized boats, so the only way to reach the property is by rowboat. Still, what’s a morning row compared to an hour on the Q-train?

There is something unmistakably horrible, awful, and in every way excruciating about the particular sticky heat that seeps in through the cracks of your apartment and nearly suffocates you every summer in New York City.

It’s the kind of heat that makes you wonder if they’ve opened an illegal Russian bathhouse in the apartment below yours. The kind of heat that forces you to shower three times a day. It’s that 200% humidity, 99 degree heat that can only be combated by your trusty air conditioner. Veteran Brooklyners, Manhattanites and the like know that oscillating fans alone just won’t cut it.