I was brought up to use sponges, but even after microwaving or boiling, they are bacterial sinks within minutes. We are now committed to dishrags and sometimes change them multiple times in a day, ...

We're willing to do a lot to stay in the city itself, because of the easy commutes to work (I walk and my husband takes an express bus), the amenities, and so on. And "a lot" includes not having a ...

I'm with you, happify. I spent all of graduate school with people who treated books as the ultimate status symbol (we're so intellectual!) It got old. There's no reason to hoard books when most of ...

The light's much better in the new kitchen, although it's not to my taste. Personally, having lived with the black and white checkerboard for several years, I hate it more than any other kitchen fl...

Stairs for the building are welcome. I prefer the apartment itself to be all one level. However, I have a toddler.

It would certainly make cleaning the floors easier.

For our half-bath, we used the starch fabric trick that's normally used on walls, and just ran it across the disgusting new vinyl floor and up the walls to the edge of the old tile (the vinyl and...

In SF we pay the same for our earthquake rider as we do for the general renters' policy. I don't view this as too expensive. The exclusionary language with respect to earthquakes on the standard po...

I would buy this in a heartbeat if it really closed the LID and not the seat. We cannot convince my mother-in-law to put the lid down when she visits no matter how we beg, how often we explain to h...

The house reminds me of Beetlejuice. But I am glad that they put the toilet lid down.

Delancey Street gets rave reviews from pretty much everyone who uses them. We lived four different places over two years and learned that getting rid of stuff is best moving trick. Sav...

Hi Rebecca, can you provide a link that lets you purchase the plans? I saw the Moddi on Ikeahacker earlier and loved the idea. Unfortunately the link on the website seems to be dead, and I haven't ...

We purchased a foam cushion from foamorder for just this purpose and it was great. Although this was a few years back, we called them and got a break on the delivery by going to the SF location in ...

Ants will set up shop in the pots of house plants once they get inside the house. We had to get rid of three plants that were basically nests of ants one winter.

I also eliminated paper with a scanner (the scansnap); I now have an empty file cabinet that I keep meaning to sell on craigslist. Every few days I scan in everything I think I might want to keep (...

A dehumidifier also works wonders. We had a huge problem with mold because (as the inspector finally discovered) the Tyvek was installed backwards with the windows, so that no matter what we did hu...

You said you don't like roman shades because you don't want to cover the wood, but you might consider hanging extra-wide roman shades in the wall space above the windows and below the ceiling. Each...

Shrink wrapping the window should work, as mentioned. Be careful with putting up window treatments like insulated curtains on single-pane windows, however; they can cause condensation on the window...

For added security in earthquake country we get the picture hooks with holes, and always hang pictures from two hooks, one above each upper corner, with picture wire strung down, across, and back u...

St@cy, I'm definitely not kidding about limiting the number of guests who are children. I've yet to see a kid 2-5 years old who doesn't get overwhelmed by birthday parties that have tons of other k...