On this last trip to Chapter’s, I picked up 4 magazines. House Beautiful (Apr 2009), Canadian House and Home (Apr 2009), Ideal Home UK (March 2009), and Elle Décor (April 2009). Overall, and I hate to say it, but I’m soooo disappointed. I used to come home with the latest issue of Domino and literally spend HOURS reading it from cover to cover. When I returned home, I spent a total of 1 hour TOTAL leafing through all 4 of them. Pretty pathetic.
The one magazine I was dying to get my hands on however, either isn’t available in my local store yet, or was sold out, the April/May edition of Ready Made. I think I’m going to have to subscribe to the ReadyMade as it’s the only publication that I’ve been excited about over the past few months since the announcement of Domino’s closure.
What do these magazines (the ones that I wasn’t very happy about) have in common? It’s like I picked up the same magazine, the same issue, 4 times. Nothing stands out, nothing is remotely unique about any of them. They are just simply blah. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that everyone’s issue sucks this month, but I must say it’s very disappointing. Most notably, House Beautiful.
House Beautiful has been touted as being the next best thing to Domino by various other design bloggers, well, I have NO idea where that comes from to be honest. The cover of the April ’09 issue is even boring.
After taking the 12 minutes in total it took to go through the entire magazine, I was unimpressed. There was nothing unique, nothing original, it was simply 147 pages of advertisements and editorial coverage that only embellished on their advertisements. Eesh. Give me something new people! Something that I haven’t seen before, or heard of. Every page was just fuddy-duddy traditional. Every single house tour in the issue was professionally decorated, and there was nothing REAL about them whatsoever. Over styled. Stuffy. Snobbish. EEsh. Like, do people actually live here? Or is this a model home I’m looking at. Yes, I understand that ever home is styled for a photo shoot, but NOT every home, and NOT everyone hires a designer to do so. Some of the best homes I’ve seen were designed by the homeowner over time, those are the best homes out there, and the ones that I want to see.
Do you feel the same about the existing shelter magazines available out there today? Would you like to see more REAL homes? Do you already have a source of where to find REAL homes for decorating inspiration? (please enter your suggestions, and opinions in the comments section below)
