modernmarvel's Full Review: Better Homes and Gardens Magazine Subscription
Better Homes and Gardens aims straight to the middle class. They have lots of decorating ideas, gardening ideas and throw in lots of articles, recipes, health tips, child rearing tips and sundry other things.
STYLE
The decorating style is really updated traditional. There is no cold, modern aesthetic here, although some of the houses aim for a more modern approach. There are lots of crafty and do-it-yourself touches. Happily, there are also lots of practical touches such as large cabinets to store lots of children's toys. The homes look more lived in than other magazines and the spreads often show a real family doing everyday things such as cooking and playing. Some spreads even have (gasp!) clutter.
The gardening styles are often located in surburbia and are possible to create on your own lot. While design is discussed, the magazine also covers cost, maintenance and the skill-level needed to create the garden. Most of the gardens are achieved on relatively small pieces of land.
MAIN DEPARTMENTS
Better Homes & Gardens covers a wide variety of topics. These topics are grouped as follows:
Home Design: This is the heart of the magazine. There are not just glossy spreads of attractive interiors. Instead, Better Homes & Gardens gives you all kinds of decorating tips and craft projects to improve your home one small step at a time. Look for articles on storage ideas, garden spaces, hobby spaces, how to frame pictures, wall hangings, how to arrange furniture, making curtains, living with less stuff and other "how-to" ideas. Of course, the magazine has full-page color spreads of at least two homes in each issue featuring a whole-house interior or renovation. These spreads are meant to be inspirational and give you ideas for renovating your own home.
Garden: Gardening is also a main focus of the magazine. Unlike other gardening magazines, Better Homes & Gardens gives more "how-to" tips and has plenty of articles focusing on the practical side of gardening rather than pure design. Each issue usually has an article that discusses the attributes of a certain plant. There are also lots of articles on outdoor living - how to create a place outdoors to use as part of your living space. There are features on decks, porches, sheds, benches and other outdoor furniture.
Family Matters: This section covers a range of topics from raising kids to dealing with aging parents. There are also lifestyle articles about vacations, managing money and random current topics. The magazine is focused on families so each issue has at least one article on dealing with some aspect of parenting.
Food: There are always lots of recipes in the magazine. Most recipes are easy to slightly advanced. The ingredients are usually easy to find in your local market. In addition to recipes, there are articles on entertaining, cooking equipment, wine and beer, and certain types of food.
Health: This category also covers a range of issues. There are articles on staying healthy, dieting, exercise common diseases and other health issues.
OTHER MINOR COLUMNS
Editorial: A one page letter from the editor.
Letters to the Editor: Letters from readers complimenting the magazine on its last few issues. Occasionally, for balance, they print a letter with a minor criticism.
BHG.COM: New info on their web site.
Resources: This is where you can buy things in the magazine.
STATS
This magazine is printed on cheaper paper than most magazines. There are plenty of color pictures but they lack the heft and glossy feel of many other magazines. The magazine does not come wrapped in paper or plastic like other magazines and the cheap paper can get chewed up in the mail. The number of pages varies quite a bit. The April 2003 issue has just over 300 pages. The January 2003 issue has only 140 pages.
ADVERTISEMENTS
Like any magazine, Better Homes and Gardens has lots of advertisements. Clearly this is a magazine marketed to families with children because the ads show more than just furnishings and accessories. There are also home goods, food and clothes. There are lots of ads for prescription drugs. There are also many ads and postcards to buy "collectibles" which are basically overpriced crap that you can buy in monthly installments. One nice thing is that some of the food advertisements include coupons.
A little more annoying is that the magazine usually has at least one article extolling the virtues of some product you must have. Then, conveniently, they sell it at the end of the article. I find this integrated advertising a bit more annoying than the pages of ads that constitute more than half of the magazine.
WEB SITE
Better Homes & Gardens has one of the best magazine web sites. The web site compliments the magazine and is at www.bhg.com.
PRICE
The cover price is $2.99. A one-year subscription is 12 issues and costs about $10.
FINAL RECOMMENDATION
I like Better Homes & Gardens a lot. I prefer modern to traditional styles and I am not particularly crafty, however I have still gotten some useful ideas from their columns and features. The recipes are at my skill level and I like that I can easily collect the ingredients at my local market. Even the parenting columns have helpful tidbits. My favorite aspect of this magazine is that they don't solve every problem by thowing money at it.
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