Stephen Orr: Making Renovations Matter

Carson Downing; Design: Better Homes & Gardens

The Better Buy, a podcast from Better Homes & Gardens, explores all things home—from decorating and DIY to renovating and budgeting. For season 2, we’ll delve into the full home buying process, from house hunting and moving to interior design and landscaping, with stories, practical tips, and advice from our guests each week. We’re on a mission to inspire and empower you to create your dream home. New episodes every Wednesday!

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Host Mélanie Berliet talks with Stephen Orr about how he tackled his recent home renovation project, how he struck a balance between establishing modern design elements and maintaining historical features, what he and his husband have done to make their new house their forever home, and the imperfection inherent in taking on a large-scale renovation.

Stephen Orr is the editor in chief of Better Homes & Gardens and a Dotdash Meredith editorial content director overseeing the company’s food, home, and travel content. He’s an avid gardener and the author of two books on the subject: The New American Herbal and Tomorrow’s Garden. Previously, he served as executive editor at Condé Nast Traveler. He and his husband recently undertook the task of renovating their own home, an 18th-century house on Cape Cod.

Stephen shares everything that went into creating his forever home, from renovation mishaps, to compromise, to unexpected discoveries.

The house itself, we want to keep it until we can’t have it anymore. So it’s not a house we want to flip and we’re not wanting to sell it in a few years. We want to be there until we can't be there anymore. It’s our forever home,