Bill Primavera's (williamprimavera) Blog

Perhaps you’ve never thought much about foam rubber as a stuffing for furnishings, but I for one have never cared for it. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, but I’ve always had a kind of inborn aversion to the way it feels and performs. A few months ago when the...

Never one who was big on remembering or quoting verse from the Bible, I do sometimes think of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verses 1-4. You know, the passage about the appropriate times to do this or that, when to mourn or rejoice, and all that? It’s gotten me through the low spots when I’ve thought, ...

Except for those dastardly swinging doors which I never liked and think are one of the world’s most dangerous inventions, every door needs something to grab on to in order to be opened and closed. It’s that round or oval device that you rarely think about, even though you wrap your hand around it...

In the real estate world, 2013 was quite a year to observe and ponder, wasn’t it? Quite unlike any other in recent history. Considering that it was clawing its way back from the doldrums of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, it had a lot of catch-up to do and, while uneven, ...

You’d never know it to meet me today but I was born with some kind of neurological condition that resulted in my reaching the age of five without speaking a word. That was in the days before autism spectrum disorder had been diagnosed and certainly there was no treatment available for kids like m...

It had been a long time between visits with blacksmith Bill Fitzgerald. The last time was almost 30 years ago when I asked him to assemble on my property a number of wrought iron elements -- fencing and columns -- that I had collected from various salvage companies and antiques shops. Expertly, h...

Many years ago when my wife and I discovered our dream home in the country, we were delighted that we could figure out a way to turn a one-and one half story saltbox wing with all original 18th century details into a separate apartment. It was and still is the most charming rental unit, we’re con...

At least once or twice a year, I like to take a “snapshot” of the moment in the housing market as a sort of historical record, and the very promising developments in the past six months prompt me to do so now. But first the bad news. While many signs in the market are pointing to happier days, th...

Only after years of writing about homes and what happens in them do I feel confident enough about how readers may regard me to tell a spooky story that I repeatedly placed on the back burner for fear that I would be perceived as a nut job. Halloween is as good a time as ever to tell it. It's a st...

Isn’t it a great feeling to shampoo your hair and have it be clean and shiny again? You can give your house the same treat. Funny how problems and solutions sometimes come together. I had been noticing some dark vertical stains developing on the north side of my roof, and it seemed to happen over...