But really, then why are we being left, adrift, with no decorating inspiration???  First, it was my BELOVED Cottage Living, shut, as my dad says.

I HEART this magazine.  It was so RELATABLE (if that’s a word).  Great ideas that translated to the way we LIVE every day in an environment we’d like to be satisfying (as opposed to how we’d live if we were rock stars or at best completely unencumbered by a budget of any kind.)  But, I said to myself, CL was only in publication for 4 years; hardly enough time to find traction in the fickle rag decor world.

Then, before I could catch my breath, the cessation of publication of a decorating LEGEND – Country Home.
In the past couple of years, CH lost it’s founding editor, the talented Carol Sheehan, in addition to heavyweight creative director Mary Emmerling.  But the rub was that under the new editor the magazine was taking on a sort of gravitas in the last issues, redefining itself to make a play for a serious new readership. I was heartbroken.

Next, insult added to injury, the demise of the wonderfully quirky darling of the design world, Domino.  I wondered how I would spend my time.  (Seriously.)

And now, this.  Shuttered.
How will we know?  What will we do?  *Sigh*

But I can report with all sorts of happiness about some very talented women, their inspiring and inspired design blogs:

Houstonian Joni Webb’s Cote de Texas – truly charming author who does her research and it shows. Ronda Carman’s All The Best, Decorno: If Decor Is Your Porn This Is Your Blog (*note* if you didn’t catch on, this one is not to be shared with your little ones, but still fun & interesting). Grace Bonney’s Design*Sponge blog covers so much creativity!  Love it.

I race home every day to see what the mail gods have left me that I might delight over (or toss aside scornfully, as the case may be) that evening.  I’m just old-fashioned enough to love the ritual of sitting down with a magazine after supper, turning the pages with my fingers, ripping out the pages with the ideas I want to remember and maybe incorporate in my one-day dream home.  But short of that experience, you’ll love the ideas these ladies offer, and better yet, appreciate getting to know them through their “publications.”

All I know for sure, as Oprah would say, is that THIS is not an option.

I’d bet money that the guy that came up with this concept is a hunter desperate to get his wife to sign off on all the weekends (translation: $$$) he’s off on hunting trips.  (Although I confess I did enjoy the recent article on Ted Turner’s cute, environmentally motivated son.  Okay, yes, I’ve thumbed through a couple of issues while getting a pedicure.  But I DON’T subscribe. Yet.)

Tags: decor, decorating, design, magazines, print, publications