The Apartment Therapy Small/Cool Contest Is Back for 2023!

I joined Apartment Therapy as editor-in-chief in January and one of the moments I’ve been most looking forward to is here: Today, I’m thrilled to share that the Small/Cool Contest is back for 2023, and it’s better than ever before!

We’ve made so many updates to our program to make sure this year is our most fun, most interactive Small/Cool Contest yet. Not only did we extend the submission process to give participants even more time to put their smallest, coolest foot forward once submissions officially open on May 1 at 9 a.m. ET, we’ve also changed the contest around a bit to allow you even more opportunities to interact with the spaces you adore and are rooting for. As long as you’re a registered Apartment Therapy user (if you’re not, let’s fix that by registering you right now!), you’ll be able to submit your space, then vote once a day during our two-week voting period for your favorite spaces featured in this year’s contest. And we’ve got even more surprising features where that came from.

Of course, we’re sticking to our goal of always showing off the smallest, coolest spaces 1,000 square feet and fewer. One grand prize winner this year will take home $1,000 as well as the chance to be featured on Apartment Therapy’s platforms. This year, we’re also asking our panel of judges to vote for their favorites across four brand-new categories: vibe, cleverness, creativity, and functionality. Our four category winners will each take home $250, as well as the chance to be featured on Apartment Therapy’s platforms. Since we’re asking so much of our voters this year, we’re offering our first-ever Voter Award to one of our readers who enters the most votes for the grand prize winner.

You can learn even more about the full contest in our overview here, but here are the details you’ll need to keep handy if you’re looking to submit, vote, or fawn over the smallest, coolest real-life spaces:

• Submissions open on May 1 at 9 a.m. ET, and stay open until May 22 at 11:59 p.m. ET
• Here’s everything you’ll have to know to submit, including what kind of photos you’ll need
• Our team will review all entries and assign yours a confidential score from 0-16, based on photo quality, vibe, cleverness, creativity, functionality, and writing quality
• Entrants with the highest scores will move forward to the public voting round
• Voting starts on July 10 at 9 a.m. ET, and you’ll be allowed to vote and interact with the spaces you adore once per day over two weeks
• Voting closes on July 24 at 5 p.m. ET
• We’ll announce both the contest’s grand prize winner and the category winners on July 27

We — the entire Apartment Therapy team — cannot wait for a look inside your smallest, coolest spaces! Good luck!