Booking Ideas, Tips & Guides

Thrifting and antiquing are great ways to decorate on a budget while expressing your own, unique style sustainably.

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If you love rustic or country home decor but are living in more of a modern space, there's no need to alter your aesthetic entirely. It's more than possible to artfully fuse these two styles in a way that looks cohesive and sophisticated rather than random.

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Antiques—not to be confused with vintage items—are a beautiful way to decorate your home with historical charm, but finding real pieces can be a challenge in today's market if you don't know what to look for.

Many interior designers are all about shopping secondhand when it comes to sourcing furniture and decor for their client projects.

Since 2003, the US has lost about half of its licensed dairy farms. However, the number of cows producing milk has stayed relatively steady. Take Wisconsin, for example. In 2004, the state was home to less than 16,000 dairy farms. In 2021, that number dropped in half, to less than 7,000 farms. But the number of cows in the state? That didn’t change. There are still about 1.2 million cows in Wisconsin. They’re just part of much bigger herds these days. That means that smaller farms are getting squeezed out in favor of industrial farming and Confined Animal Feeding Operations, commonly referred to as CAFOs, in which large numbers of animals are raised, generally in confinement, and feed is brought to them, rather than letting them graze.

The quest for a perfectly organized home can feel never-ending. Could there ever be enough bins, shelves, and organizers of all kinds to contain your everyday items? The answer: yes. You don’t need to waste money on boring storage products though. We’ve scoured our favorite retailers for storage solutions that marry functionality with flair, as well as organization with personality. They’re all under $50 too.  Scroll on for our 12 favorite sneakily-chic storage solutions. 

For the first time in decades I heard a cuckoo just the other day, its pealing “Wuck-Koo” ringing out so loudly nearby that I felt a quick, sharp jolt of joy at being so closely in its presence. Once a common sound, the distinctive call of this fleeting seasonal migrant from tropical Africa is traditionally believed to signal the arrival of spring. But as is true of so many other once-common species of birds, its numbers, which are down by an estimated 27 per cent since the early 1970s, have been in slow but steady decline for decades.

From built-in wet bars to bar carts, the idea of an at-home bar has taken many forms over the years, with members of each generation putting their own spin on an entertaining-friendly, at-home bar setup. Enter the Gen Z version: the bookcase bar.

Like phone books and VHS players, it appears box springs are joining the list of obsolete household items from our childhoods. Not to be confused with the modern bed foundation, box springs contain steel coils inside that offer a little give.

Propagating plants from seed is what hooked me into gardening. Even now, after years of watching seeds transform themselves, the magic of germination never fails to thrill me. The essence of gardening is change and the work of gardening is care. Nothing stays the same for long. The hands-on physicality of weeding, digging and planting is a great antidote to looking at a screen, which many of us are doing more than ever today.

Studio McGee

Jordan Slocum and Barry Bordelon know a thing or two about renovating a home. The couple's claim to fame was their massive renovation of a historic Brownstone in Brooklyn after dating for just seven months. This earned them the "Brownstone Boys" name, and the rest is history.

Decluttering your space is simple in theory: just sell, donate, or discard/recycle anything you don’t use or need anymore. But it's the practice of that simple theory that can be hard. 

BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine is delighted to bring you another exclusive event at Highclere Castle, the ‘real’ Downton Abbey, where you’ll be joined by Alan Titchmarsh and Lady Carnarvon.

Sponsored article from StoryKeeper

Right plant, right place, as Roy Lancaster’s book taught us, is a well-known adage and one we all try to live by. Get it right and your garden will love you for it. On closer inspection that phrase belies a whole historical context that is not evident at first sight. I was reminded recently of the stark fact that most of the plants we have in our gardens are from somewhere else. From Asia, the Antipodes, South Africa, to the Americas and continental Europe, these continents have supplied us for centuries with plants that fill our green spaces. Many are now so familiar and yet two hundred plus years ago they arrived as exotic specimens, delighting the Victorians and their predecessors.

As we head towards Autumn, join us in our third BBC Gardeners’ World Autumn Fair, in the picturesque grounds of English Heritage’s Audley End House and Gardens, in Essex, from Friday 30 August to Sunday 1 September, 2024.

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In 2008, Jessica Eikleberry was 29 years old and had just read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma. She wanted to start eating locally and, with the help of her mom, she made a goal for the coming Thanksgiving: an all-local meal.

At the back of the house, Adirondack chairs are placed beside a border with a small standard wisteria, a box spiral and purple Iris ‘Art Deco’ set off by lime-green euphorbia. An unknown red rose on the wall is from Mark Rumary’s 1960s scheme.

Cameron Trimble

Craig Melvin is a busy guy: He’s a constant on NBC’s Today, he’s gearing up to head to Paris for the Summer Olympics in July, and he’s the author of a new picture book. At home, he’s husband to sports reporter Lindsay Czarniak and dad to Delano, 10, and Sybil, 7. He recently welcomed a new puppy, Myles, to the family. He’s even taken on a few cozy hobbies (more on that later). Amid all this, Melvin has turned his attention to making his home a sanctuary—and part of that is the rules, written or unwritten, that keep his house running.

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Mother's Day is just around the corner and it's time to show your mom just how much you appreciate her. If gift-giving isn't your strong suit, you're not alone—moms can be really hard to shop for. How can you convey all the love you have for her in a simple gift? Every year I find myself scratching my head at what to get my mother, and I'm constantly in competition with myself and my siblings.

Andy Lyons

The minute it's nice enough to be outside for more than 10 minutes, you won't wrangle me back indoors. My little square of outdoor space is my second living room—between work calls and running errands, if you can't find me, check outside.

R: NBCUniversal / Getty Images. Left: Clockwise. Penguin Randomhouse, Adam Albright, Brie Goldman.

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It’s often said that making a garden teaches all kinds of valuable life lessons, from the importance of patience and the virtue of persistence, to a recognition of the fleeting nature of time and the bittersweet beauty and resilience of the natural world.

Why is it important to learn how garden flowers are grouped or classified?

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In March 1910, readers of The Daily Mail were confronted with an advertisement that read, ‘Ten Thousand Englishwomen could be ranged in a line and shot. No one would be sorry. Everyone would be glad. There isn’t any place for them.’ This was pretty strong stuff, but it was just an extreme example of a widely held belief: that the country was burdened with ‘surplus women’. In 1854, author and social campaigner Harriet Martineau estimated that there were over 500,000 more women than men in Great Britain; by 1891, the number had risen to over 900,000. The chief reason given at the time was the high level of emigration among young men seeking opportunities across the British Empire. Every young man signing up to be a colonist, a member of the armed forces, a civil servant or a trader in the British colonies was one less for the women left at home to woo and catch. There was real anxiety that as a result there were ‘surplus women’ who would not find a husband to take care of them after their fathers died. The ‘surplus’ or ‘redundant’ women that bothered commentators most were middle- and upper-class women. Single working-class women were not viewed as surplus; they could go into paid occupations deemed suitable to their station, such as domestic service or factories. For ‘respectable’ women higher up the social scale, however, conventional society offered very few options.

Six DVD’s in a boxed set ‘A Year at Kew – The Collection’ (Series 1-3) with Alan Titchmarsh is available from Amazon  in time for a Christmas gift. Over 1000 minutes of gardening in a month-by-month journey via the BBC through the world’s greatest botanical garden.

My book de Jour is ‘Fifty Favourite Roses’ Michael Gibson. A second reading has given me some new insights and some varieties to look out for: 5 petalled Tea Roses Dainty Bess,  Mrs Oakley Fisher (golden) and Ellen Willmott (white) rugarosa Robusta and colour changing Mutabilis