#repurposing

#repurposing

As someone who's always chasing that cozy-chic Nancy Meyers aesthetic, I'm forever on the hunt for little details that make a space feel more charming - especially in the kitchen. Last year I bookmarked a gold hanging vase I spotted on Instagram, but it felt hard to justify its $63 price tag. Then I came across an Apartment Therapy article featuring the same look for half the price - with one surprising twist. The "vase" was actually a toilet paper holder mounted on a cabinet.

Living in a small space means getting creative with storage - and sometimes the best ideas are also the simplest. From smart furniture swaps to surprising ways to use everyday items, these are tried-and-true solutions we've featured on Apartment Therapy, showing how even the tiniest corners of your home can be put to work. Here are some of our favorite small-space storage ideas to try in every room of your home.

Austin Curtis was a prominent Black scientist whose work had spectacularly practical applications. Among his successes: He developed many new uses for peanut byproducts, including rubbing oils for pain relief. His work exploited the untapped potential of materials that others neglected or discarded. I urge you to adopt a similar strategy in the coming weeks, Aries: Be imaginative as you repurpose scraps and leftovers. Convert afterthoughts into useful assets. Breakthroughs could come from compost heaps, forgotten files or half-forgotten ideas.

Baking a basic layer cake requires finesse for proper proportions, making leveling necessary to avoid waste. Leftover cake scraps can transform into delicious desserts, like whoopie pies.

The keeper's cottage has been bought, converted and partitioned into two loft-style holiday apartments by the German company Floatel, which specializes in this kind of repurposing.

Swantje Hinrichsen and her boyfriend transformed their 1928 house in Münster into a stylish home by repurposing an old Ikea kitchen they once installed.