I love reading interior design magazines. In fact I love reading all kinds of magazines, from women’s glossies to the Sunday supplements and the very guilty pleasure of Hello magazine which I look forward to when I visit the hairdresser. As you can imagine I read a lot of interior design magazines. Each of them have their own decor niche and so reading a wide variety is a great way to get an insight into how trends, colours and innovations are interpreted across different home styles. It’s also a great way to see some of the latest ideas in interior design projects as they will often appear in a magazine first before going on to feature online in blog posts and social media.
Buying every title as it appears every month soon adds up. So rather than ration my reading, over the years, I’ve discovered a few ways to get hold of all the latest interiors titles without spending a penny. Alternatively, I’m saving the cash I would have spent for a nice piece of furniture instead!
Here are my top 3 tips to start your free interiors magazine collection.
Create an Online Library
Did you know that your local library has free online access to books, magazines and audiobooks? From the comfort of your living room you can select a wide range of magazines to read by streaming on your laptop or using a free app to download them to your Kindle or mobile device. There is a great selection in my local library but the range can vary from library to library.
Here’s what's in my current collection.
Other titles I enjoy from this service include Grazia, Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler and when I’m planning a dinner party I’ll take a look at some of the food magazines such as Olive and BBC Good Food as well.
Prime Reading
Do you subscribe to Amazon Prime? If you do then you’ll have a great choice of interiors magazines to explore through Prime reading. Prime Reading allows you to borrow up to 10 titles from an ever changing selection of books and magazines. A month ago before I went on holiday I stocked up with Living Etc, 25 Beautiful Homes and Country Living. The magazines download directly to my Kindle so I can read them anywhere.
The titles change month by month and at the time of writing this article there is a wholly different selection available. This includes Elle Decoration, Ideal Home, House Beautiful, Style at Home and Homes and Antiques. You can keep your magazines or books for as long as you like and when you want new ones simply return the ones you’ve read and replace it with a more recent issue.
Loyalty Cards
Digital reading is all very well but nothing really beats sinking into a deep chair on a lazy Sunday and thumbing through the pages of an actual magazine does it. I think this is a well deserved treat that we should all indulge in as often as possible and a little while ago I discovered a way to make this happen.
Those little points soon add up on your supermarket loyalty card so what better way to spend them than to treat yourself to your favourite magazine popping through the door once a month. Check out the Tesco Clubcard website to see the range of interiors magazines they have on offer.
Issuu
This isn’t entirely a freebie but I’ve added this one as it is a really unique way to discover new magazines that aren’t available in the UK. One of the only times I do buy magazines is when I’m travelling as I find it refreshing to see interiors trends in other parts of the world. Issuu creates digital versions of publications to be read online or buy and download. Head to the home and garden category and you’ll find interiors magazines from all over the world. Read older publications in their entirety but new publications tend to offer sample pages before a credit card page pops up so you can try before you buy. One my recent favourite discoveries on the site is Minty - an Australian magazine specialising in kid’s interiors which is is a niche I haven’t found covered as in-depth in UK magazines. You can also road test some lovely lifestyle magazines usually only found in interiors stores or bookstores like 91 Magazine and Estila and order printed copies for your coffee table collection online.
Do you have a collection of interiors magazines at home? Share your favourites with us in the comments. I’d be interested to hear what you’re all reading at the moment.
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