if I had any hope it was destroyed by the crushingly bad Iowa-produced volume. which featured a long editor’s note about how you didn’t have to be located in Berkeley to be a vibrant publication, and then belly-flopped on cement.

order back-issues on eBay. the only mags available today that seem to come close to ReadMade are Craft and Maker, which are PROHIBITIVELY expensive, and often geared towards someone with an engineering degree and more resources than the average American.

I have never made a bad meal from a “Real Simple” recipe; they are good about publishing errata. My two oldest daughters are now subscribers, and I pass my copies on to another daughter.

I just ordered the back issues I was missing, and I have re-read each one several times already. As I move into a new condo (the first place my husband and I have ever owned), the suggestions and ideas are invaluable for us to set up my new space.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.co.....ter-054978

But then when I was 22, newly graduated, newly married, and moving far away, I decided I was going to completely clean out my parents’ house of all my stuff -a kind of symbolic cutting of strings.

I carried it around for three years before finally letting it all go. “Many of us started out in our first home the same way. We have many things from our childhood room, furniture handed down from family, dishes and decorations from our last apartment or college dorm. We try our best to make it all work together. But sooner or later it no longer satisfies us. We feel the urge to create a home environment that reflects who we are as individuals, a couple or as a family. We no longer need things from our childhood bedrooms; we want our homes to be ours, not leftovers from the past. But where do you begin?” (p.75 That Military House…)

I think this demographic of twenty-somethings could have a whole magazine (Real Simple Apartment?) -like Blueprint, but with focus and relevance* (not just lifestyle porn about being 23 with a six figure income and a stylish pad in some New York city neighborhood I’ll never see):

Advice on how to let go of your childhood things; how to set up your first home; how to give those hand-me-downs a more pulled together look until you can replace them; having your parents (or older siblings) visit; dealing with the relatives who can’t seem to realize you’re not still 13; managing your friendships when you are all trying to transition to Real Adulthood and some of you are making it faster than others (the strain in The Devil Wears Prada between Anne Hathaway’s character and her friend/boyfriend; this tension reminds me of the tension 6th grade girls who have been friends since kindergarten experience when some of them suddenly become interested in boys and dating and some are not there yet.)

* http://jezebel.com/gossip/nest.....332148.php

Big Solutions for a small living room/dining room
http://www.realsimple.com/real.....-1,00.html

I love the “Use Vertical Space.” Minimizing the amount of precious floor space that is sacrificed for storage with the use of tall bookcases is such a fantastic idea for getting the most out of tiny rooms. One of the beautiful bonuses of tall, small-footprint furniture is that it is more versatile in a variety of floor plans. It avoids the problem that occurs when the 64″ wide dresser that fit so well in the last bedroom doesn’t have enough continuous wall space in the next bedroom.

I also love the “Keep it in Scale.” It’s easy to forget standing in Restoration Hardware that the 6 feet deep couch is just not going to look as good in my 11′ x 13′ living room. And with moving in mind, staying small helps not just for the reason above (like that a love seat and two small arm chairs are more versatile and easier to work with than one giant couch), but with moving itself: getting that sofa up three flights of stairs and through doorways.

Anyway, wanted to pass on that find in case anyone else found it as inspiring as I did.

*In addition to The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook

Not a big fan of Real Simple, but I’d like to be. I agree with the other posters about too many ads, too much product promotion and too much idea recycling. I don’t want to hear about a product unless it’s natural, organic, sustainable and packaged in recyclable materials – AND makes my hair like buddah. How’s that, Jim?

I personally like Dwell. I have to read it in bits because I get so overexcited with design ideas. Plus the clean crisp real life homes inspire me to keep my real life home clean and crisp.

I second Jocelyn’s thoughts on using real homes for Real Simple. And more than the two photos of a place you redid for a feature of orgainzing a closet. I believe one of the reasons I like Dwell so much is its use of real homes. Also its use of homes that are outside of NYC or the Upper East Coast. Recongizing that most people live outside of those two areas would go a long way for most magazines.

“What magazines inspire you? Are there magazines you wouldn’t necessarily consider home or organizing themed that often have great anti-clutter articles in them? Let us know about your favorites!”

I sometimes scan the comments on this site because they have additional helpful information. These were almost entirely negative. That is disappointing!

In any magazine, the most inspiring articles are those that show real people living in real homes and living purposefully. I love these features–and I’ve found several in Real Simple (gasp!).

Jim Baker, if you are still out there, I’d say keep up the longer feature articles–keep looking for people who can challenge or inspire us with what they do in their daily lives, and write about them and take pictures of where they live. Two past articles that come to mind right now are the ones about (1) the family that lives off the grid outside of Telluride, CO, and (2) the artful family in which each kid has an art box. Different types of families and features, but both interesting and inspiring reads.

First, some demographic information: I am a 27 year old military spouse with no children (yet) living in a 600 square foot one bedroom/one bathroom apartment in Virginia. My bookmarked websites are Unclutterer, Apartment Therapy, Re-nest, The New York Times, and the Whole Living section of Martha Stewart. My computer is a MacBook. Recommended reading: “The Itty Bitty Kitchen Handbook” and the introduction to “Home Comforts.”

The issue of Real Simple that I own so far this year is the April 2008 issue. I picked it up for its bright, crisp, homey cover. I still have it because of the Too Much Stuff article. Since it was about purging and not about organizing, I have smothered the text with all manner of underlinings, exclamation points, stars, and notes. Purging is more useful to me than organizing because I live in small spaces and move often, meaning 1. there is not a lot of room for stuff no matter how well organized, 2. owning less means packing, moving, and unpacking less, and 3. even if I purchased storage solutions for one apartment, they’d be bound not to work in the next (even over-the-door racks are tricky since the width and thickness of doors is apparently not standard).

Other than mentioning that clutter comes in because “slapping down a credit card can be just plain fun,” the article is primarily about the 6 reasons we have a hard time sending stuff out the door. How about a follow up article on the reasons it’s so easy to let it in? For example, I would get rid of those clothes I hadn’t worn in a year (the shirt that was so perfect except that it doesn’t go with anything, the dress that would be killer if only I could find the right shoes) only to replace them with clothes that had the same problem. Finally I realized that for me the best thing to do was to replace my clothes all at once. I went into Anne Taylor Loft and picked up 3 skirts, 2 dresses, a pair of pants, four shirts, and two pairs of shoes. That is now my wardrobe. Another problem is that Pottery Barn catalogues are like beer commercials to me: they imply that if you have this thing, then some kind of enjoyable social event will happen. I look at Restoration Hardware patio furniture and want to ask the sales representative: does this come with 2 weeks off? Or at least someone to make me a drink? Objects in stores, catalogues, and magazines look cozy and clean; wanting that more than the object itself, we buy something and then wonder what went wrong when the thing inevitably drowns in the giant storage unit that has become our living spaces.

Besides ongoing articles about all things clutter, I’d love to see (for the first time ever) articles on living in normal apartments. Not pied-a-terres or Manhattan lofts, but articles that address the common problems of run-of-the-mill apartments: the small kitchen, the white and beige color scheme, the miserable lighting, the dumb division of space, etc. For example, almost all apartments have decks. Mine is 6′ by 10′. Even if I wanted to squeeze a little table and two chairs out there, there is nothing in the way of shade, my view standing up is of the parking lot and my view sitting down it is of the wall. Everyone uses their decks as either giant, unsightly junk drawers or as nothing at all. I would rather have the 60 sq ft added to my minuscule living room, but since moving walls is not feasible with a 12 month lease, what would Real Simple suggest? Is there a tiny green house I can put out there for growing my own produce on a little raised bed (thus ending for me the debate between organic and local)? Could I compost my kitchen scraps out there? If I could, is there a way to take it with me when I move? Additionally, wires are the bane of my apartment existence. We have a TV that could be wall mounted, but its wires would be hanging down the length of the wall. How to disguise things when drilling holes into the wall is not possible?

My third main interest is having the apartment be a healthy living environment. I’m concerned about the VOC in paints, carpets, and cabinetry. Besides getting rid of air freshners, Febreeze, scented candles and anything else that is bad for our cockatiels (they are our canaries in this mine of a dwelling), we picked up a Boston Fern and a Spider Plant because NASA recommended them. I began looking for more tips from NASA -I figure if anyone knows how to make a tiny place efficient, self-sufficient, and healthy it’s them- but I haven’t found anything else. Just when I was wishing for someone to put together a real “eco house” -sort of reminscent of a World’s Fair exhibit- I heard that there is one on display at a museum in Chicago. Could you do an article on that exhibit or even on just the idea of what an eco house might look like -especially adapted for the average bad apartment?

Are there any plans to remodel the website? It is not as crisp and attractive as the magazine -the opposite problem of Martha Stewart’s Body and Soul in which the website is quite nice while the magazine is hideous.

Another poster mentioned that even the pages that aren’t ads in Real Simple are ads. While I think that is true in every magazine, what makes it not irritating in In Style or Lucky is that shopping is the purpose of those magazines. When your name is “Real Simple” you can’t send people a shopping list as thick as some phone books every month. The article on the playroom in the April 2008 issue came across like an after-thought excuse for product tie-ins; it’s just a bunch of Stuff shoved up against all the walls with things placed at the wrong heights and no little nooks or spaces for a child to play, read, or hide. The IKEA table is awful and I’m sure someone thought the giant paints were whimsical or something but they serve no purpose. Visit a daycare center or look at early issues of Wondertime for great spaces for children. Or just crawl around and see if the place still looks good from the floor.

I don’t want my home to have the air of a catalogue shoot, store display, or crime scene. I want it to be a compact, clean, functioning, efficient work horse of daily life and all its small pleasures. If you can give me that, the illusion of that, or even just the feeling of not being alone for wanting that, I will buy your magazine.

Thank you,

Jocelyn.