Replace the Board Games in Your Closet with Tablet and Online Versions

We're living in the age of the small-space dwellers' dreams. Nearly every collection a person could want to hold onto — files, books, photos, music — can be whittled down to a digital version that's only as large as the device it's kept on. Here's our newest plan: replace some of our board games with tablet versions.

If you want to make a little room in your hall closet, consider replacing a few of those bulky game boxes with tablet or online versions. Most games' digital counterparts are just as easy and fun for a pair or family to play, and they take up far less space in your home.

I recently decided to take the plunge and order the $6.99 Ticket to Ride app for my iPad from the iTunes App Store. Ticket to Ride is a popular game in my house, but clearing space on the table and dragging out the game and all of its little pieces was getting annoying. Now, we just start up the app. By passing the iPad back and forth between players, we're getting nearly the same game experience, plus we were able to sell off our old game board.

Of course, not all games have app versions, and even fewer of those games are able to translate well to tablet or online play (for instance, we still like to keep party games like Apples to Apples in "hard copy"). It worked for us and our favorite Sunday-night game, but you should check out your own game closet to see if you can save space by going digital.

MORE GAMES FROM APARTMENT THERAPY:
• Our Current Favorite Social "Board" Games
• After Dinner: Best Party Games
• After Dinner Fun: Board Games for the Holidays
• 10 Always-Entertaining Party Games
• Electronic Updated Board Gmes: Awesome or Awful?

(Images: Flickr user Patrick Q, Ticket to Ride for iPad)

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Room Juice: Custom Online Interior Design Store Profile

Specialty: Affordable online interior design services

Price Range: ($) Budget

Ever wish you could get just a little design help? Assistance in selecting the right paint color, ideas on how to accessorize your room, or advice on what the best furniture layout would be for your space? Nothing too involved... just a little guidance from a professional to get you on the right track...

Enter Room Juice, an affordable online design service that lets you choose the plan that works best for you. You provide measurements and pictures of your space, and Room Juice provides exactly the assistance you need - at the budget you specify. Want a $400 modern Moroccan facelift for your bedroom? You betcha! How about $2000 overall of your living room? Absolutely! With Room Juice, you call the shots. Services range from paint selection, to furniture layout, to accessories, to a total makeover. Prices start at $49, and results for all services (except a complete makeover) are delivered within a week.

For more about Room Juice, visit their store page over at Marketplace.

Image via Room Juice

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Fine Little Day's New & Expanded Online Shop

We here at Apartment Therapy have long admired Fine Little Day's Elisabeth Dunker. Her pillows adorn our couches, we admire the style in her home and her posters have shown up in a few house tours. Good news for us and the other Fine Little Day fans out there: Dunker has opened a new and expanded online store.

The store features a few favorites, such as the Splash pillowcase and Apple Papple poster, as well as new items like an exclusive poster by Finnish artist Hanna Konola, a pattern called GRAN, and some well-curated vintage finds. Dunker's patterns range from quirky to classic and embellish everything from postcards to blankets — a variety that's sure to please her current fans and to attract plenty of new ones.

• The gorgeous GRAN print adorns wallpaper and pillowcases, $37/m2 and $50 respectively.
• The bright, whimsical Magic poster by the Hanna Konola, $52
• The timeless, neutral-hued Harlekin Green blanket, $260
• A silly, unexpected print decorates the Flower People cutting board, $52.
• This vintage Kelim wall hanging is elegant and classic, Price TBA.

Browse the goods at the Fine Little Day shop.

Images: Fine Little Day

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The Printed Page: Top Ten Jabs in the Times' Online Shelter Magazine Story

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Thursday, June 2, 2011, by Sarah Firshein

Today the New York Times runs a truly epic story about the state of digital shelter magazines. (So epic, in fact, that it contains roughly 2,700 words over four pages online—countless column inches, no doubt, in the print edition.) As we've said before, Lonny is the grand doyenne of this crowd—its 2009 hatch to life has since inspired a notable stable of copycats: Rue, High Gloss, and Matchbook, among them. Fascinating things are learned about the kind of photoshoots these pubs organize, their budget, and, of course, the amount of traffic each site receives. (The key to the fountain of youth an absurd number of pageviews is being what's essentially a 347-page flipbook, just like Trad Home.) Interviewing these girls—as congenial as a luncheon on Sex and the City, right? Let's just say that it's a good thing the new-to-town (and decidedly un-girly) online design magazine Entra is sitting this one out. Here now, the top 10 jabs, from both the reporter and from the interviewees:

10: On the lack of an ad/edit page ratio: And the freedom from printing costs can result in excess, as when Lonny devoted 38 pages to a home in Chiswick, England.

9: On making friends with Lonny: “We didn’t have a pre-existing relationship with them and haven’t been able to develop one,” [Rue editor in chief] Ms. Gentilello said.

8: On recycling content: Even the articles can feel oddly familiar: after Lonny featured the Manhattan decorator Vicente Wolf, he turned up in Rue’s first issue last fall.

7: On editorial judgment: And aside from the 22 pages that Rue devoted to him [Wolf], there was the added bonus of being referred to as a "design god" whose wrinkles “only increase his masculine beauty.”

6: On digital media: As Crystal Gentilello, the 28-year-old co-founder and editor of Rue, put it, “Everyone and their mother has a blog.”

5: On writing skills: High Gloss seems willing to introduce almost anyone as a “style maven,” and Matchbook’s recent “Portrait of a Lady” article on Diana, Princess of Wales, reads like a Wikipedia entry.

4: On gaining experience in the industry: “I think she [Adams] still has to learn a lot,” Ms. Simpson [her former boss at Domino] said. “She went from an assistant to running her own magazine. She skipped a lot of steps along the way.”

3: On editorial judgment, again: While the editors of Rue might run an article called “Darko Weirdo Dinner Party,” as they did in their March/April issue, Ms. Adams’s taste is more traditional, and old-line society decorators like Albert Hadley have appeared in the magazine.

2: On the market being flooded: Ms. Adams rarely mentions her competitors, and when she does it’s with barely contained annoyance. “All of our competition is using it right now, and no one knew it existed before,” she said of Issuu. “It’s sort of like, ‘Oh, really, guys?’ ”

1: On what sets Lonny apart: “A lot of our competitors seem interested in fame,” Ms. Adams said. “We’re interested in decorating.”

· The Thriving (Online) Shelter Magazine Industry [NYT]
· The Online-Only "Print" Pub Catfight: Rue Vs. Lonny [Curbed National]
· Please Welcome the World's First Non-Girly Digital Design Pub [Curbed National]

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Print Vs. Online Debate Takes to Twitter: Happening right now: a Twitter debate...

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, January 17, 2011, by Sarah

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