Jennifer Laing

Not attending the Oscars on Sunday night? Indulge your award-ceremony fantasy by imaging what it might be like to dress for the red carpet in one of these diva-licious dressing rooms.

In a city of millions of people and small apartments, finding a spot to spend time with your Valentine can be a bit of a challenge. Not so if you have one of these “sexy” bedrooms—defined for our purposes as a a space large enough for two, offering a degree of privacy and, perhaps, a little something extra to set an appropriately amorous ambiance.

For some, an apartment with a bathtub would suffice, but a bathtub with a view is just plain swoon-worthy. These home all have tubs with awe-inspiring vistas that are sure to give their bathers something to contemplate other than their own dirty feet.

Have you ever wondered if your life could be easier, better, even happier if you lived in a different apartment, a different neighborhood? We did, so we asked three real estate pros to find one family (mine!) a more suitable home and neighborhood than our present three-bedroom, two-bath set-up in our beloved East Village.

The mission: a family-sized, pet-friendly apartment within a 30-minute commute to one child’s Upper West Side school and both kids’ extracurricular activity hub (Lincoln Center) while sticking to a budget of $5,000 to 6,000 per month.

Despite the blanket of holiday decorations, the tree sellers on every street corner, the Salvation Army bell-ringers at all store and subway entrances and the barrage of emails announcing holiday promotions galore, Christmas is days away and you have yet to purchase a single gift. To the rescue: Duane Reade. Yes, every New Yorkers’ favorite drug store conveniently stocks merch that can hold its own beneath the tree and won’t disappoint on Christmas morning. Here a sampling of what’s available at the Union Square flagship location: