apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The Mobile Office: A Home Office Made of Discarded Materials

Antoine Morris and David Long of The Practice of Everyday Design wanted to create an all-in-one solution where they could rest, read, work on their laptops in a small, easy to convert space. What th...

How To: Reuse Old Light Bulbs as a Flower Vase

DIY YouTube star, Giannina Lezcano, show us how to reuse old clear-style light bulbs as decorative elements around the house. And don't blame us for what she's wearing......

Gazelle: Recycle Your Electronics For Cash

When it comes to old electronics, the usual options are: donate it (great idea but we paid a lot of money for this); recycle it (it's only a few years old, and we'd like to get some money for it); or...

Cable "Gutter" From a $4.99 Ikea Hanger Rack

Moving affords you the opportunity to re-purpose your old stuff (When I downsized to a smaller workspace, my Ikea Mikael desk was cut down to become a coffee table). If you're moving to a warm climate...

Craigslist: Buy vs. Best Buy

As people are busy keeping up with the Jones' they leave a wake of discarded technology behind them and more often than not those things are ending up on Craigslist. Everyone loves a bargain, but ...

Make a MacBook Stand From Its Packaging

We love it when we can save stuff from a life in a landfill and use it to make our lives better, more beautiful or more efficient. Apple knows this better than anyone and consistently puts out great l...

Reused Empty Inkjet Cartridges Lighting

Etsy seller boxlightbox couldn't bear tossing out the abundance of inkjet cartridges her workplace would go thru on a regular basis, so she began taking them with the motive of making something out ...

Panasonic Ups the Ante with Greener CRT Recycling

We've covered a variety of methods when it comes to recycling our old CRT TVs (heck, you can even turn them into pots). But it looks like Panasonic's about to up the ante when it comes to the actual m...

Use Rain Gutters to Wrangle Under-Desk Wires

BEFORE. Click here for the "after" shot.Above is the "before" shot of Lifehacker reader Seandavid010's tangled mess of a desk. But he got a new desk and a new outlook on cord management when he decide...

6 Household Uses For Recycling Old Mouse Pads

It's a strange realization to have on a random Wednesday morning, but I just noticed that I haven't seen a spongy square mouse pad in many years. Now that optical mice are de rigeur, you don't really ...

An Ugly Sweater Party For Your Laptop

Who says employees at holiday Christmas parties get to have all the fun? Doesn't your laptop, surely a better friend to you than that guy from IT, deserve to have a little bit of "I've-been-searching-...

Old Computer Sitting Around? Check Out all Your Options...

Computers are no longer the fancy new gadgets they used to be. We're getting bomarded with new shiny features everyday, but let's face it, the computer is no spring chicken. All across America, there ...

Another OMG Really? Recycled Home Appliance

This bad-ass, uber-modern, glass-topped, inner-lit side table (we couldn't narrow down exactly which two-parter hyphenated description to use for it) was once a part of a common—well, not in NYC...

Green Idea: Wine Box Turned Table Lamp

We have seen the idea of repurposed product packaging come up before and the reactions have been mixed. Are we advocating increased consumption of "stuff" or is there really value in extending the us...

Look! Clocks Made From Old, Recycled Tech

Making something new from something old is getting, well, old. Not like the idea of recycling is tired—but just that we're not so impressed by the creativity of it all as we once were. But that ...

Ambient Pool Lighting: Uses No Power, No Need to Install

We're going to go out on a limb and say that most AT readers don't have private pools. But if you're lucky enough to be in a warm climate, own your place, have a house with a yard and happen to have a...

Not Useless Packaging: The Sticky Lamp

Are we seeing a new trend here of lamps whose packaging becomes part of the lamp itself? The cleverly-named Packaging Lamp was number one, and now we have the “Sticky Lamp” by designer Chris Kabel...

Old-School Typewriter Key Jewelery

We've done blogs about accessorizing with old technology before. Using old video games, old cameras and old typewriters as part of your decor can add a little bit of geek chic flair to your home. Anot...

The Greenpeace Guide to Who's Being Green

The latest version of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics (they do one every year) lets us know which electronics manufacturers are being kind to the earth and which ones could care less. Thin...

How to... Recycle An Old CD-R Case and Save Some Lunch Money at the Same Time

When we watch Martha Stewart or read Southern Living (both of our guilty pleasures), we can pick up a lot of tips for cheap and cute place settings or making beautiful holiday giftwrap from everyday i...

Make a Jacobs Ladder Toy from Old Cassette Tapes

You've probably repurchased any songs you used to jam out to on those old-school cassette tapes and are now storing your classic tunes as MP3 files on your computer. Maybe you've even done Mother Eart...

Online: 8 Cool Organizer Tools to Print For Free

DIY: Make Free iPhone Stands with Recycled Packaging

Our cell phones really are taking over our lives. When we posted about taking your laptop on travels, we got feedback that many people leave their notebook at home and use their phone for impromptu We...

Four Ways to Drop Your Old VHS Tapes

If you're already living in a home without a VHS tape in sight, congratulations. Some others, we know, have a harder time purging old technology. If you're sentimentally hanging on to your tapes, why ...