By Bill Primavera There are lots of synonyms for the word stale, and none of them are pretty. Cliche, stereotyped, tired, hackneyed, trite, boring, commonplace, shopworn. Do these descriptors spell a living environment that you’ve known or experienced? By comparison,

By Bill Primavera When it came time for my wife and I to sell my last home which, as empty nesters, we found much too big for our needs, we were in a tizzy about which upgrades to enact to

By Bill Primavera There is definitely something comforting about the word comfort and all of its meanings:  physical, mental and spiritual. But, here, let’s get physical. When I got my first apartment on my own when I was in college,

By Bill Primavera As an adolescent, long before I ever had an interest in interior decorating, much less the opportunity to decorate a home, I came upon a photograph of a room in one of my mother’s women’s magazines that

By Bill Primavera In my first New York City apartment, as I recall, my two roommates and I were offered a choice of two colors: a stark white or an off-white. We chose the off-white to protect our eyes from

By Bill Primavera Every so often, depending on what former President Donald Trump is up to, there is a discussion among some residents of my building at Trump Park about changing its name, both in its title and address. I’m

By Bill Primavera If asked which room of the house is most important, some people might say the kitchen (we’ve all got to eat), the bathroom (we all have to go) or the bedroom (for sleep, which is essential, or

By Bill Primavera Only now can I tell this story about a dear, dear friend, a woman in the culinary field whom I had met years ago when I worked as marketing director for the Culinary Institute of America. She

By Bill Primavera Between my junior and senior years in college, I won an internship scholarship to participate in a summer program for aspiring museum curators at that fabulous restored village known as Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts. The village consisted

By Bill Primavera When I was in college, back during ancient times, I started to buy and collect books, mostly paperbacks at the time. There was a nice college bookstore at the College of William & Mary, which, if I