Articles by Fred Albert

A sofa is one of the biggest furniture investments you’ll make — and one of the most permanent. Even if you’re just buying one for a temporary fix, it’ll eventually get demoted from the living room to the family room to the basement and, finally, the …

Doug Towle considers old homes his children. The lifelong bachelor has spent much of his adult life restoring antique buildings, including one of his most recent: a 1665 Pilgrim house that had been in the same Billerica, Massachusetts, family for 12 g…

Congratulations. You’ve decided to decorate your home. Now what? Whether you’re furnishing your first place or redoing the house you’ve owned for decades, decorating can be a challenging task, filled with costly decisions whose outcomes could haunt yo…

Like a blank page or canvas, an empty room can be either an opportunity or a challenge. With so many ways to fill it, how do you know where to start?I’ve taken some of the basic rules of furniture arrangement and distilled them into 10 simple tips. Th…

A sofa is one of the biggest furniture investments you’ll make — and one of the most permanent. Even if you’re just buying one for a temporary fix, it’ll eventually get demoted from the living room to the family room to the basement and, finally, the …

“Since I was a little kid, I’ve always loved Lego,” says Seattle architect Jeffrey Pelletier. “It’s probably the reason I’m an architect now — it just inspired me.”Pelletier’s fascination with the colorful building blocks didn’t end at adolescence. He…

Doug Towle considers old homes his children. The lifelong bachelor has spent much of his adult life restoring antique buildings, including one of his most recent: a 1665 Pilgrim house that had been in the same Billerica, Massachusetts, family for 12 g…