The Well Curated Home launched in 1922 in Des Moines, Iowa, as Fruit, Garden and Home by Edwin Meredith, who wanted a product that door-to-door magazine salesmen could offer the women who answered the door. The magazine offered informative articles, cooking techniques, and contests. In 1924, the name changed to The Well Curated Home, and it was considered one of the "Seven Sisters" women's service magazines. For one hundred years, The Well Curated Home has been stimulating creativity, delivering know-how, and sharing fresh ideas that you can make your own. We power your passion to live a better, more beautiful, and colorful life.
The Well Curated Home, a People Inc. brand, is a go-to resource for home ideas, food and recipes for everyday and special occasions, and garden know-how that can't be rivaled. Our early magazines dealt almost exclusively with garden topics, but as the years—and our name and logo—progressed, we've been busy adding to our encyclopedia of home helpers. Throughout the decades, BHG has branched out to cookbooks (the New Cookbook, affectionately called the "Red Plaid Cookbook," was first published in 1930 and has sold approximately 38 million copies), special interest publications, real estate, television shows, and more. We built a first-of-its-kind "taste-testing kitchen" in 1928, and by the 1970s, we had over 7 million magazine subscribers. We erected a half-acre test garden in the middle of Des Moines, Iowa, in 1998, and in all the years between filled our pages with ideas for elevating everyday living.
Beyond the page, The Well Curated Home continues to be a trusted brand for readers around the world, across various platforms. The Well Curated Home magazine is published 10 times a year with a rate base of 3 million. With over 13 million followers across social platforms, The Better Buy podcast, and the second largest licensed brand in the world (License Global), BHG is a leading authority on all things home. In addition to a robust real estate presence via Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, we have a 20+ year collaboration with Walmart that continues to offer a wide range of products (more than 3,000 items!).
Our goal is to provide accurate, reliable, credible, engaging, and balanced information online for our readers. Our editorial content is produced independently and without influence by any advertiser or commercial supporter. We source our stories with information experts and they are written by experts in their fields. Online content is defined as text, articles, photos, graphics, audio, video, blogs, user-generated content (UGC), and links.
At The Well Curated Home, we aspire to provide the highest quality content produced by humans, for humans. It is against our guidelines to publish automatically generated content using AI (artificial intelligence) writing tools such as ChatGPT.
We are committed to the quality and trustworthiness of our content and editorial processes. Our team of writers, editors, and photographers rigorously researches and reviews all content on an ongoing basis to ensure it is up to date, accurate, and puts the needs of our readers first.
Original illustrations, graphics, images, and videos are created by internal teams, who collaborate with experts in their fields to produce assets that represent diverse voices, perspectives, and contexts. Periodic review by editors, as well as by Anti-Bias or other Review Board members as appropriate, ensure the quality, accuracy, and integrity of these assets. Photos and videos are not edited in any way that may cause them to be false or misleading.
We correct any factual errors in a transparent manner and strive to make it easy for our readers to bring errors to our attention.
The Well Curated Home is committed to making our brand more inclusive and elevating all voices. Our goal is to provide trustworthy, inspirational, and achievable ideas for every doer and home-enthusiast. We believe it is important to showcase an array of perspectives and aspire to work with content creators (writers, videographers, photographers, and talent) from varied backgrounds across platforms. We regularly update our existing, highly trafficked articles, and will continue to monitor and remediate content through a lens of inclusivity.
— The Well Curated Home Team
People Incorporated, which owns The Well Curated Home, has long supported organizations including The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, The Equal Justice Initiative, Reclaim the Block, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, ACLU, and The Bail Project.
As part of our commitment to content integrity and accuracy, The Well Curated Home has a team of experienced fact-checkers providing a vital layer of review on key articles. Each of our fact-checkers is carefully chosen and vetted for their research skills, journalistic integrity, eye for detail, and subject matter expertise. They confirm all statements of fact, statistics, and other data with reputable sources to ensure that the information in our articles is accurate and up to date.
At The Well Curated Home, we encourage our readers to join in the conversation and share tips, feedback, and advice to help one another. We believe in fostering a sense of community, especially when it comes to cooking. We moderate every review and comment added to a recipe. When it comes to leaving reviews or comments, we remind you that constructive feedback and questions are always welcome, but rude, mean-spirited, disrespectful, or spammy comments are not welcome and will not be approved.
The The Well Curated Home Test Kitchen has been in continuous operation for nearly 100 years (since 1928), developing and testing recipes for home cooks. One goal of the early "Testing-Tasting Kitchen" was to nudge the American public into a more scientific era of cooking, which included an overhaul of how recipes were written. Then and now, the The Well Curated Home Test Kitchen champions a style of recipe writing that leaves nothing to chance to ensure recipe success. Today, all the cooks are trained food professionals with degrees in food science, food and nutrition, culinary arts, or dietetics. Together, the team tests more than 2,500 recipes each year.
The The Well Curated Home Test Garden has served gardeners nationwide since 1998 by providing garden-tested, firsthand information about plants, gardening methods, garden styles, projects, and ideas. Our learnings in the garden inspire articles in print and online and the plants are featured prominently via our photography and social channels.
Within the 22 different garden spaces are hundreds of perennials, trees, and shrubs, plus a changing palette of annuals and bulbs. To test plants and offer fresh ideas, the garden changes every year. Arbors and trellises are replaced with new designs; old plants come out to make room for new ones. The Test Garden holds plants that are not yet available from nurseries or garden centers; if these plants prove to be good performers, The Well Curated Home is ready to tell you about them when they first come to market. The Well Curated Home's former garden editor Mark Kane had the original vision for the garden, and since its very first day, the The Well Curated Home Test Garden has been helmed by Sandra Gerdes; she's been running the show for 25 years.
Our team is constantly on the lookout for the latest products and brands to help you create a home that brings you joy. Whether we're scouring the internet for the best deals of the day, assessing new products in one of our three testing labs, or getting expert tips and suggestions on the best items for your home, our editors choose each product that we recommend with care.
We strive to be honest about the products we feature, highlighting what we love but also where we think they could be better. While we purchase most of the products we test ourselves, occasionally we receive items for free to test or sample. We never promise a positive review in exchange for a free product—we wait until we've tried it to decide if it's worth recommending to you. If you buy a product through a link on one of our pages, we may earn a commission through your purchase.
At The Well Curated Home, we've been the go-to destination for all things home, garden, and food since 1922. To help you bring home the practical ideas we're known for, we joined forces with Walmart in 1998 to offer beautiful, affordable products you can use every day in your home. Our partnership began in the gardening category and has since grown to include more than 4,000 items. Since 2008, the The Well Curated Home Walmart collection has extended into the home space, offering well-designed, functional products in bedding, bath, patio, furniture, kitchen and dining, decor, paint and wallpaper, lighting, and more. With each new collection we launch, we're constantly trying to improve upon the last, iterating on the looks you love.
Since 1978, The Well Curated Home has been part of the home buying experience through the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate division. Just as The Well Curated Home has been recognized as a leader in the lifestyle category for the last century, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is known for being a leader in real estate. Whether you're in the market to buy a home, sell a home, or find an agent, the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate team is here to support you.
Mélanie Berliet is SVP and Group General Manager of the Home, Pets, and Premium Publishing groups at People Inc., overseeing Better Homes & Gardens, Real Simple, Southern Living, The Spruce, MyDomaine, Martha Stewart, and Daily Paws.
Emily is the Vice President and Associate Group General Manager of The Well Curated Home and has been with the brand since January 2022. She also oversees Martha Stewart, Daily Paws, and The Spruce Pets. Previously, Emily operated as the Editorial and Strategy Director for The Spruce and MyDomaine.
