If you held onto a few empty cereal boxes after Part 1, good call. Their convenient shape and sturdy cardboard still have plenty to offer, particularly when a slightly more specific household need comes up. For the second half of our series, we're putting four more boxes to work.

Sometimes you have a bottle of wine that deserves proper storage, but putting it in the main cellar doesn't make sense. Maybe you're planning to open it soon, you're still deciding where it belongs in the collection, or you simply want to keep it separate from the other bottles. Fortunately, an empty cereal box is almost exactly the right size for the job.

Start with your empty box and line the interior with closed-cell thermal insulation, then add a thin layer of Spanish cedar and a vibration-dampening bottle cradle. Cut a small opening in the back for your spare thermoelectric cooling module and connect it to a digital temperature controller. Add a humidity sensor, place the bottle horizontally inside, and monitor the conditions until the box settles around 55°F. Once the temperature is stable, your one-bottle wine cellar is ready to use.

Finding yourself with an egg that needs incubating is rarely convenient, particularly when your incubator is already full. Leaving the egg on the counter isn't going to accomplish much, and moving the existing eggs around can disrupt an otherwise perfectly good setup. Before making room where there isn't any, check the recycling pile.

Start with your empty box and line the interior with reflective insulation, then install a thermostatically controlled heating element and small circulation fan. Add ventilation holes, a digital hygrometer, and your extra automatic egg turner, then set the temperature and humidity for whatever species you're working with. Place the egg inside, monitor conditions as usual, and transfer the hatchling to your brooder when the time comes.

Formal events have a way of appearing on the calendar at inconvenient times, and occasionally your usual top hat simply isn't available. Maybe it's at the cleaner, packed for another event, or currently being reshaped. Whatever the reason, there's no need to reconsider the dress code when you have an empty cereal box nearby.

Start by opening the box along its seams and separating the cardboard into panels for the crown, brim, and top. Shape the crown over your millinery block, reinforce each piece with buckram, and join the sections before covering the finished structure in black silk plush. Steam the brim into shape, then add grosgrain ribbon, a leather sweatband, and a traditional hatband. Give it a final brushing, and your replacement top hat is ready for the evening.

A hole in the ceiling is one of those household problems that's easy to ignore until suddenly it isn't. Maybe some plumbing work left an opening behind, you needed temporary access to the wiring, or someone stepped in the wrong place upstairs. Whatever happened, there's no reason to spend another week looking at it when breakfast has already provided the solution.

Start with your empty box and cut out the largest uninterrupted cardboard panel, leaving at least two inches of overlap around the damaged area. Hold the panel flat against the ceiling, center it carefully over the hole, and secure all four sides with several long strips of white duct tape. Press firmly around the perimeter to make sure the cardboard sits flush, adding another strip anywhere you notice a gap. For a cleaner finish, run one final continuous border of tape around the entire patch. Step back, make sure you can no longer see the hole, and the repair is complete.

Have an idea we missed? Email us at extremecereal@aol.com. We're always looking for new ways to keep perfectly good cereal boxes out of the recycling bin.