Here’s how home decor magazines are tackling spring

Spring has finally arrived. So does that mean it’s safe to go frolicking in the park or catch an afternoon Mets game? Of course not. It means it’s time to finally replace those kitchen countertops and weed that garden like you promised.

Before we even crack the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living, its cover dazzles with a pastel-hued display of Easter eggs — reminding us, of course, that most of us folks in the Big Apple don’t have a backyard to stage a hunt for the kids.

The city slicker’s-deprivation theme goes a notch higher with the feature “Step Into Martha’s Walk-In Closet.” The domestic diva’s quest to organize her wardrobe began last fall when she decided to convert an “unused bedroom” into a closet. So if you’re a point-one-percenter in the city who’s got an embarrassment of extra bedrooms, you’ll be glad to learn that Martha divvied hers up into accessory compartments that also leave room for alliteration — “a berth for bags,” “space for shoes” and whatnot.

More in touch with city asceticism is the monthly’s “Waste Not” story, which features Lauren Singer, a “zero-waste convert” whose epiphany came while she was majoring in environmental studies at NYU.

“After class one day, I was making dinner and realized just how much waste came out of even one meal,” she says, conjuring visions of a trashcan brimming with Styrofoam ramen noodle containers. “I was a hypocrite. I had to start living my values.”

Five years on, the NYU alum is now a “Trash is for Tossers” blogger whose lifestyle generates so little waste that an entire year’s output fits “into a single Mason jar.” No word on whether this is one of those Mason jars that’s the size of, say, a grain silo.

Classic Home, Athlon Media Group’s new entry in the home-decor category, is to bathrooms what MSL is to walk-in closets. The maiden issue provides a brief history of these “private spaces” — whirlpool tubs in the ’90s, double-nozzle showers in the ’00s — before revealing what’s making suds today.

“Make room for beautiful standout elements like a modern claw-foot tub or an ample vanity with lots of storage and double sinks,” the magazine commands. Again, as city dwellers, we were slightly vexed at the sight of these “luxe & lovely” bathrooms — each of which looks as large as Martha Stewart’s walk-in-closet.

In a rare instance of getting down to basics, we must say we liked the mag’s prim, succinct advisory: “Note: Using wallpaper in a full bathroom works best when the space is well-ventilated and doesn’t get daily use.” Nothing worse than stinky wallpaper!

The rest of the issue, however, is devoted to that frightening breed of homeowners hell-bent on completely reinventing the living spaces they purchased. An Arkansas colonial mansion gets gutted with Nordic minimalism, for example, while an old schoolhouse gets converted into a French country estate. The magazine details the “how” of these bizarre transformations — although it politely fails to ask these people “Why?”

Better Homes & Gardens has a cover story on an “Urban Farmstead,” which, it turns out, isn’t a cramped balcony or the rooftop of a brownstone, but instead a 2,500-square-foot backyard in suburban Sacramento.

The comely young couple discover that they “grow more fruits and vegetables than they ever imagined.” One of them owns up to the fact that, yes, they do live next door to California’s Central Valley, the famously fecund patch that happens to be where most of the fruit in this country comes from. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t plant an orange tree in Schenectady and see what happens.

“One of the things about gardening,” he replies helpfully, “is that there aren’t a lot of hard-and-fast rules.”

The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot takes a deep dive into Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, and some of what she reports in this 14-page sprawler is painfully obvious. “My principle concern is that Pruitt and the people he’s hired to work with him don’t fundamentally agree with the mission of the agency,” said Bill Ruckelshaus, former EPA head under Nixon and Reagan. More interesting is her reporting that it’s an “open secret in Washington that Pruitt would like to become attorney general,” and that he’s determined to replace Jeff Sessions. We also enjoyed the fact that Pruitt, whose taste for private jets is well known, has a 24-hour security detail and installed a soundproof phone booth in his office.

Fresh off the “March for Our Lives” protest this weekend, Time’s cover story on the Parkland, Fla., students chronicles how they meet up in a donated, windowless space in a strip mall to plot their next moves for their #NeverAgain movement. It’s where a new video was made mocking NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, where members of Congress have come to meet with them and where they eat lots of pizza, according to Time. They also have taken security precautions because of death threats.

Five of the students Time interviews worry about the $4 million in donations their cause has attracted and whether their urban counterparts are getting enough attention.

“Our biggest problem is that we are getting too much help,” says 17-year-old Jaclyn Corin.