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Voting for Our 2023 Small/Cool Contest Is Officially Open!

Kylie McConville
Kylie McConvilleEditor-in-Chief at Apartment Therapy
I'm the Editor-in-Chief of Apartment Therapy, and I work with our editors to create content that truly helps our readers create stylish, functional, and creative lives at home. Before I joined this A+ team, I was the Vice President of Editorial Growth at Bustle Digital Group, Editor-in-Chief of Elite Daily, and founding editor of Romper.
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published Jul 10, 2023
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We opened submissions for Apartment Therapy’s 2023 Small/Cool Contest on May 1, and since then we have been so overwhelmed (with excitement!) at this year’s batch of entrants and their small, cool spaces. After our submission period officially closed, our team carefully reviewed all of the entries, assigning each submission a confidential score based on photo quality, vibe, cleverness, creativity, functionality, and writing quality. We’ve moved entrants with the highest scores forward to public voting, and now they’re ready for your eyes — and votes.

This year, aside from you picking a grand prize winner, we’re also doling out four category winner prizes, plus a voter award for a reader at home who helps push their faves across the leaderboard finish line. 

Ready to win? Of course you are. Here’s what you have to do and what you need to know. 

We’re asking Apartment Therapy readers to vote once per day for their favorite spaces between July 10 at 9 a.m. ET and July 24 at 5 p.m. ET. In order to vote, you must register and create an account on Apartment Therapy, and then you’ll have 15 chances — that’s one vote per day per entry — to vote for each space you love the most.

Meanwhile, our esteemed Apartment Therapy Small/Cool Contest judging panel — which includes Apartment Therapy Media’s founder and CEO, Maxwell Ryan; Emmy-nominated TV host and design expert Bobby Berk, of Queer Eye fame, whose debut book, Right at Home: How Good Design is Good for the Mind, releases September 12, 2023; and therapist turned interior designer Anita Yokota, author of the bestselling book, HOME THERAPY, who uses her masters in Marriage and Family Therapy (LMFT) as inspiration for her work in Southern California — will select four winners in the following categories:

  • Vibe: The entry with the best design/aesthetic.
  • Cleverness: The entry with ridiculously cool and unique small-space solutions.
  • Creativity: The entry that’s teeming with personality, whether that’s via a wall mural/treatment/collage, a personal collection of items, or something else entirely.
  • Functionality: The entry that really works due to its layout and use of space.

And here’s what they’ll win: Besides endless bragging rights, the grand prize winner will get $1,000 and the chance to be featured on Apartment Therapy’s platforms, while each category winner will receive $250 as well as the chance to be featured on Apartment Therapy’s platforms. 

Our first-ever Voter Award winner (to be randomly selected from the readers who vote the most for the Readers’ Choice Grand Prize Winner) will receive a free one-hour design consultation on Zoom with Apartment Therapy Media’s interior design expert and Real Home Director, Adrienne Breaux.

Voting opens today, and we are so thrilled to share the best of this year’s small, cool submissions with you. We can’t wait to see which spaces resonate with our readers, and we’ll be cheering all of our entrants on each day in our Small/Cool Contest leaderboard! We’ll announce both the contest’s grand prize winner and the category winners on Apartment Therapy on July 27 — good luck!!!

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Small Cool
Small Spaces