Home magazine - Throw out all your stuff and this magazine too.

“As a people, we seem to be obsessed with improving our homes.”

How earth shattering is that statement anyway?

That’s the lead for the editorial for Home in the latest issue, but it sure is a dreary start on page 20 after a lot of ads. Who calls us a “people” these days? Who waters down a statement with “seems to be” and then says that we “people” spend $161 million a year remodeling?

I can’t find this magazine on the stands around here, but I did check this out at the dentist office last year when I was doing the “root canal” thing. Unless they gave me too much Novocain, then Home was better back then than now that I have a year subscription.

This copy has one of those URGENT notices that I’ll need to pay again, so I guess I will wait for another root canal to see what is coming down the pipes. They do have a Reader Panel online and invite readers to sign up and offer opinions in the magazine box area. Maybe they will get back in gear if readers do respond. I guess that “not signing back up” will send a message too.

The thing I did like about Home was that it had ideas that I could really use. Some of the home magazines and home experts expect me to be a carpenter with an unlimited flow of cash. I have flooded the bathroom twice, but I know where the water cut off is now. I might spring for patio furniture at the end of the season on half price, but I don’t go out and get a $2000 couch for the new season. Home doesn’t take that approach, and I do like that about the magazine.

Unfortunately, the focus, though generally doable in terms of skill level and dollars, has become very bare bones. I’m looking through the latest issue, and I am thinking: “Well, if I throw away almost everything we own, then I can have a room like this.” Then I have to wonder how happy the kids will be if the only thing we have in the living room is a couch and a pretty pillow. Do I really want to live in a bare room? They are telling me how to “add layers of light” and giving me a sterile room that looks like my dentist office with glass doors on the almost-empty cabinets. I’m thinking that none of my windows even seem to face the sun anyway, so I might as well forget sunlight being the main focus in my home.

My brother is a house person and buys and restores homes. He is single, so he does not have a whole lot of stuff. I can see where he might like this magazine (maybe—probably not), but even he has more junk than you can see here (even when he hides the stuff for house tours). They have a whole section on “Neatly Divided” in this issue (and that is the feature piece). If the most permanent decorations I have are peaches to throw in a bowl on the table with a vase of flowers, then I doubt anyone will be around to eat the peaches (which go bad really fast) or enjoy the flowers, which are white and very bland. The feel I get here is that it is a bad thing to have any stuff handy that might make your home comfortable.

If I look through the mega-ads in here and find the quickie pieces, which make up the bulk of the magazine, then I don’t get much. They have the flower article, which is Peonies, but they have about 7 or 8 inches of copy and the info is very general. The how-to part is about finishing spots. You learn how to put up molding in the corners mostly. Again, this is covered in a few paragraphs. The recipe section is really dull. They have some kind of spaghetti thing, macaroni and cheese, and breadcrumbs. Those are loosely linked to decorating, but I yawned through that section. I make killer spaghetti, and I’m not looking for new ways to make something that easy.

The best article in this edition is the one about buying odd sized pieces to fill gaps in your home. This is not really an article. They just show you the odd things like a chair that will sit in a corner and tell you why they like it and where to put it (if you don’t know, then you probably don’t need it). I like unusual pieces, but these are pretty out-there. There is a couch with one arm and not one on the other side. You can get a box that doubles as a seat and will hold your towels. You won’t want to sit on this wood box though I don’t think. It looks like a second choice to sitting on the toilet.

Usually, I like the endnotes where someone writes an opinion piece. They have those in Home, but they are really short. The one this month is about shopping online. If you’ve never shopped online, then it might interest you (but it is very general). I don’t really care where the writer got stuffed dear heads to make the house look like they have lived in it forever. I don’t have to buy stuff to make mine lived in. Invite us over, and we’ll fix you right up.

This magazine was always ad heavy, so that did not surprise me. It did have good ideas and things that I would consider when I just breezed at the dentist office. Now, I wade through the ads, and I don’t find anything worth the page flipping. Maybe the style this year is to cut out all clutter (and everything that might mean something). Maybe the new editor just has a different idea about what looks good. All I know is that I flip through in about 15 minutes when I get my new copy. I don’t even pass the magazine on. I can’t of anyone who would like it. I don’t plan to renew.