Let's talk about the Restoration Hardware "sourcebook"

Did you get your Restoration Hardware sourcebook last week?  My 616 page book arrived on Friday along with the new Restoration Hardware Baby & Child catalog, which was the size of the normal RH catalog.  I haven't ordered anything from Resto since they super-sized their furniture (most of their sofas and club chairs probably won't make it through a standard door), so I was surprised that they decided to spend the money to send the book to me.

A look at their Facebook page tells me that there are others who feel the same way.  While many had positive comments, plenty were upset by the waste of paper.  There's a statement about RH supporting sustainable forest management on the back of the book, but I thought that rang a little hollow. 

After getting over the amount of paper used (one Facebook comment referred to the sourcebook as "a small tree"), I started thinking about the transportation costs for all those books.  How many people actually called an 800 number with a catalog in hand to order something in recent years?   Don't most people place catalog orders online these days?  Was the book really necessary?

Before I recycled the sourcebook, I took a look at it and snapped a few pictures of the pages (I know I could take screen shots of these on the RH website, but this was easier).  The pictures are great, but after a while, I started to realize that they were almost void of color.  A couple pages looked like they were in black and white or sepia.  I know some people buy into this look completely, but I can not imagine living in a home that lacked color.

The baby catalog was even worse.  The images were very pretty, but they made me sad.  Don't babies like color?  The scientific answer is yes.  Don't older children like color, too?  Based purely on my observation of friends' children, the answer is yes.

There's a certain amount of irony there, isn't there?

Did you get the sourcebook?  What did you think of it?