apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

suddenly, my obsession with magazine isn't as frightening.

magazines

I had a similar collection, though only 8 years, stored in the same holders. I just got rid of almost all in preparation for a cross country move. It was quite sad but freeing too.

Turn those cases around and show off the bindings! The simple white with all those nice colors...its a shame to hide your prize collection.

I tend to pitch my magazines after reading them. If there's an article (usually some sort of DIY reference) that I want to keep, I'll cut it out and put it in my giant folder of reference articles. It's a little disorganized right now, but takes up a whole lot less space than all the magazines would.

My Marthas are the only ones I keep. But I started tearing out all the double paged adds. Somewhat obsessive and probably not great for the bindings, but it makes me happy to flip through them without seeing all the ads.

I only keep the articles and pictures I want out of magazines and get rid of the rest. I have binders (about 4) that I go through and organize from time to time so that the info stays up to date and relevant with my lifestyle now. I can't imagine keeping 11 years worth of magazines intact.

I have 10 years of Wallpaper* Magazine...
...every single issue since #2

I've gotten so sick of having all these around - I never look at them - I'm sending them all down to the recyclers this weekend.

Ooh putting articles you like into binders is a terrific idea. But I can never make myself cut up all those pretty pages! For a while I had about 5 years' worth of MSL, and kept a mental catalog of each issue that had articles I liked.

bepsf, do it! It'll feel great!

bepsf - i have a lot of old wallpapers too....i would try to sell them on ebay...there are lots of people who would pay for them. and shipping things by USPS book rate is cheap.

bepsf - if eBay doesn't appeal to you, just leave 'em out on the street. I found a box of old Elle Decors marked "FREE" a few weeks ago and it totally made my weekend!

up until recently i had 8-12 years or so of Met Home, Elle Decor, LivingEtc., as well as every issue of Budget Living, Atomic Ranch and a few other things. I had them all lined up in a long low console in my living room.

During the cure, I went through all and tore out what I wanted to keep for inspiration before recycling the rest, with exception to Living Etc. & Atomic Ranch, which I kept all issues of, but put them in nice magazine files in my hall closet.

What did I replace the living room collection with? Every issue of Better Homes & Gardens from the '50s and '60s that I bought from an estate. They are super popular conversation pieces when people are over. I think we still have not made it through all of them.

Incidentally, in flipping through the shelter mags that I did recycle, I found I only pulled out an average of 1-3 pages per issue of Met Home and Elle Decor. Why did I keep them all that time? I'm also letting my subs run out this time. They just don't inspire me anymore.

I was considering doing eBay - but it just seemed to be more trouble than it was worth....

I'd hate to leave the fileboxes full of magazines on the sidewalk - I could just see the homeless folks here in SF making a huge mess of it...

Maybe I'll try posting on Craigslist's "Free" section first...
...I have lots of old Met Home, Dwell and British "CAR" magazine too.

(But I"m keeping my Atomic Ranch - for now...)
;-)

I completely understand why a huge Martha fan would collect the magazines...but collecting home design magazines for future inspiration can get out of hand. I recently cleaned out all of my IKEA magazine holders, and like ridge_van_winkle, found at most a few pages of each magazine to put in my binder of design ideas. I can't believe I was wasting so much space for so long! It felt really good to get rid of so much stuff I didn't use.

After getting rid of years worth of magazines, a couple of years ago, I now try to read, clip whatever I want, and get rid of magazines within a week after they arrive. I'm doing pretty well with it, although I think I'm still clipping way too much -- my inspiration files are bulging. The next step is to prune the files after I make a decision.

My local library added the mags to their twice a year sale --they told me that they had found that binding them into collections for the shelves wasn't worth it, since they're not checked out enought to be worth the trouble.

Maybe we should take turns purging each other's collections, since we're not emotionally attached to each other's particular hobbies (I could throw out every copy of someone's twenty year accumulation of Sports Illustrated, for instance, and never shed a tear)

I should also clarify that I didn't just buy the BH&G collection for fun (someone here just joked - "you just replaced junk with more junk!") I actually mostly bought them for style/color/etc. reference. (I'm a midcentury illustrator.) Although I do see the irony in buying someone else's magazine cast-offs the same week I purged my own. ;-)

Oh have no doubt--those Elle Decors I picked up off the street WILL be recycled after I go through them and tear out things I like.

This sort of thing scares the beejebus out of me...my friends have strict instructions to put a bullit through my head if they ever find signs of this sort of thing.

bepsf, Freecycle often works well for giving away magazines, too.

I am magazine free now. I gave them all to my mother who is going to give them to her hairdresser since it seems there's nothing to read in that salon.

I also have 11 years of Martha, though not including special issues. Mine are organized by year, and lay flat on top of each other inside built in shelves with glass doors.