Some Favorite Design Magazines

Back to the subject at hand here at The Daily Designer...

There are some stunning home design magazines out there, absolutely filled with an abundance of home decorating ideas.   It can be a little overwhelming, in fact, because there is so much creativity and thought put into these arrangements.   If you are like me, you probably think "we could never get that look".   My main reason is that I have two very energetic little girls and my wife and I both work full-time, so home decor tends to take a back seat to things like throwing out dirty diapers and hunting down 3-day old bowls of Cheerios (mortal enemy of clean homes everywhere).  So right now, we are not worrying too much about having a designer home, but still, we do enjoy looking through our wish books.    Its even nicer when I come across a product line that we sell, or even better, an actual mention of Carolina Rustica.  An example of the latter is the Fall Edition of Oprah at Home.  Surprisingly, there is no online version of this publication, but one of our writing desks was indeed included in this edition. 

Another favorite is Domino Magazine, which has some impossibly creative interiors which only a professional could achieve.   The magazine is definitely targetted to our demographic, and it makes me happy to see product we carry in their magazine, such at this bed by Corsican Furniture (not on our site, but available nonetheless). 

Sometimes these magazines go overboard, however, and its important to recognize that avante-garde design can also get pretty silly.  One of my favorites was in Domino, where they focused on a Long Island Hampton get-away.  The designer was raving about his wallpaper, which consisted of nothing more than pages torn from a field guide to shorebirds, tacked to the wall!  Huh?

Finally, setting the bar impossibly high for clean and green living is Dwell, which has some of the most incredible contemporary homes and designs on the planet.   Talk about a wish book.   I could live in almost any home featured in Dwell, except for the ones that this company recycles out of shipping containers.  I am a minimalist, but not that extreme.   Well, maybe I am.  When I tell my wife what my dream room would look like, she suggests that a nice prison cell has the same features.  Not really the look I'm going for...