Friday, September 18, 2009

why so bossy house beautiful?

as a magazine junkie i have been known to wait outside the barnes n noble for the ups guy to deliver the boxes of "crack" early on a tuesday morning. i know some of you (all of you?) feel me here. we need our magazines, they feed us, inspire us, give us fodder for our blogs etc.. so despite the fact that the best magazines have died (domino, cottage living) i think most of us still hold out hope for the existing ones to get their shit together and give us good, new, inspired design. yeah, yeah...i know diff'rent strokes arnold...BUT, from where i sit the magazine world is fucking B O R I N G. par example...the october issue of house beautiful made some big claims; they told us we would never tire of great details...true HB but the example you gave us of the chicago townhouse looked like every other house i've ever seen in your magazine...(snnooore). and was that detail or over styling?
then you preached to me that i'll never get tired of blue...well that's bullshit b/c last year i WAS tired of blue..although i am loving it again..but i am loving the dark mysterious blues, the almost black blues. and blue in doses not everywhere. the blue you give us of the east hampton house is just too much blue!! it's everywhere...the couches, the walls, the rugs, the accessories...it's so blue it makes me want to punch blue in the face! and don't even get me started on the pink and green room. i think my problem with you these days HB is that i want the houses you feature to be roughed up a little, they are all so perfect...who lives like that? no one, that's who. and it never looks attainable. but then you told us we'll never tire of quality. that is true and the house you featured with that silk koi pond wall covering was amazing! paired with that dark blue (and fuck you for not making the images available!) was incredible. and that french limed oak sideboard..i nearly passed out. don't get me wrong, this house was just as luxuriously unattainable as the others but it wasn't so overly fussed out that i felt i couldn't replicate it somehow. and then you told us we would never tire of keeping it simple...true dat. at least for me that's true. the house below is what you gave us for the simple scenario...
simple, yes. but also a little dull and lifeless.
and then you told me that i would never get tired of tuscan. umm...i didn't know i liked tuscan HB, probably b/c i DON'T!

now, moving on to the other popular shelter mag out there,elle decor...usually guilty of the same unattainable style as HB. but somehow this issue was the better of the two..i think b/c of interiors photographer simon upton's place. a gorgeous industrial loft bathed in white but roughed up with exotic treasures gathered on his travels. mixed styles of slip covered furniture and modern chrome and leather dining chairs. lots of textiles draped over everything....eye candy! and it was interesting, not predictable.
another winner was this house:
it belongs to the dudes who run anthropologie and urban outfitters. (way to have your finger on the pulse of the majority of your readers margaret russell-btw when is top design coming back on? i need it so i can make fun of it here)

this place was so unpretentious and chic. well done. don't start the bj's just yet though elle decor...you have been known to bore too just as HB has been known to deliver...so if i were you i would keep that finger on the pulse and pay attention to what these here blogs are saying..we are doing the research for you...for FREE i might add!
don't worry i will still buy you (and sadly, love you b/c of my addiction) b/c living etc, inside out, vogue living australia, and Canadian H&H are expensive and don't come out as quickly here plus they're fucking foreign so the sources are usually pointless. but as punishment every time you deliver us bullshit i will call you out on it.
(sticking my tongue out)

20 comments:

Unknown said...

You rock!

court. said...

I'm glad I'm not alone. Just got my first few issues of Met Home this week (due to the fact that 6000 credit card points can only get you a cutting board of 3 magazine subscriptions)--awful. How on earth is this attainable for me unless I have a million dollars and a design shrew on call?? I miss Domino and have to rely on HB to fulfull these needs. Not happening.

I feel so guilty that each month I spend around 50$ on magazines. My house could go up in flames if someone lit a match.

Jill GG said...

I haven't seen HB this month yet... but Elle Decor I could hardly finish. Blah, blah, expensive, blah, blah, boring, blah, blah, uninspired.... blah.

Junque Rethunque said...

wtf?? Won't tire of Tuscan!? What overpaid home-stager in NW Arkansas paid them to say that... because that's all there is here in the McMansion market. So much Tuscan I start craving pesto when check out the local open houses. It's the worst design trend I've ever seen. All clunky and overdone and COMMON. Blegh.

Anonymous said...

one of my fave mags that died was blueprint! :o(

bluehydrangea said...

I so with you!! I thought HB was so boring!! You get all excited, wait all month and then...nothing. Not one thing to get excited about!! I am doing a post on Australian vogue Living and how I would love to order is but it's like 80 bucks for 6 issue!!

Fargerike Dagny said...

Lol, thanks for a great post! And I agree with you, Tuscan style is truly horrendous! Was dissappointed with the rooms you'll never tire of as well.

Have a great weekend!

Sara@hip-e said...

I totally agree with you! I miss good magazine porn.

boops said...

everyone hits a wall eventually...
I can't look at the icy blue/brown combination anymore without wanting to poke myself in the eyes. I go to art galleries and look at nature (especially during seasonal changes) for inspiration when the mags let me down. (sigh)

Carol said...

Too funny. It's like you took what I was thinking, but made it cleverer and dirtier. Love your critiques!

Anonymous said...

Someone needs to put out a decent magazine, with smart and beautiful and affordable style. Wabi-sabi, eclectic, industrial chic, shabby bohemian, edgy country... the market is out here, waiting. Please deliver!

alison giese Interiors said...

I'm on the fence, but I think it's only because I'm just so thrilled to receive ANY shelter mag - even if it's something like three weeks behind everyone else...
Still, I LIVE for your so-dirty-it's-great observations, truly make my day!

Room Service ~ Decorating 101 said...

I am finding less and less to be excited by in the shelter mags...You would think with less of them they would be better! But they are losing it and it makes me sad. I want to support them, but don't like throwing my money away...

susie q said...

I love your blog. And I couldn't agree with you more. Everything is too "pretty" in House Beautiful. The interiors need more "interesting" and less "beautiful." And the Tuscan thing makes me groan. Even if it was Michael Smith, it was heavy and pretentious and boring.

I'm looking forward to Lonny. Lots of Domino editors will be contributing. And each feature is suppose to be about 20 pages long. Go to http://www.lonnymag.com/ for a sneak at the cover.

SGM said...

I think you should start a design magazine. Just photos with a tiny bit of copy sprinkled with obscenities. Now that's something I would hand out the bjs for.

(p.s. Conde Nast started sending me Cookie in place of Domino and words can't even express my fury. God, that magazine makes me feel inadequate in every single way.)

Alana said...

Tuscan is sad. so sad. And we'll never tire of blue? then why did i just paint over my blue bedroom walls? tire of it i did, mighty quick. yes, they are bossy. i agree- less pretty, more interesting.

Alana said...

and i might add that the blue sweater on the cover, lying on the bed just-so makes me want to kill someone.

Tara Dillard said...

Hope the mags you write about are reading YOU.

Your voice speaks for many.

One of the pics, dining room of anthropolgie owners, has the window view airbrushed away.

Know what that means? The landscape is terrible.

That represents money, style, achievement of some sort? OMG, banal.

Do magazines think we don't see out the windows of the rooms they print?

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

Anonymous said...

It might make sense to share the blame with the decorators. Starting with the nasty, strange, bruise-colored mess Vicente Wolf produced in the latest Metropolitan Home.

Anonymous said...

Nothing worse than TUSCAN. Tuscan is so awful that it makes me cringe. If I had to live in that tuscan mansion I would die. Anyhoo-

Love the blog and I HATE that our favorite fixes are all going down. I find blogging and blog reading much more fulfilling than the recent shelter mags. Oh yea, I like HB much better than Elle Decor. Dont know why, but it just rubs me the wrong way. Everything is too D&D.