The chairs pictured below are closeouts/overstocks from the manufacturer. We have been given the exclusive change to help in the liquidation process. Pricing has been drastically reduced. Home and office furnishings you could use every day. Stay informed - special purchases, great bargains and new products. Great values on quality products for your home, office and college students. Coming Soon! Brad shows step-by-step furniture repairs that can save you hundreds.

At home, latex paint is usually better than oil-based (alkyd) paint. Benjamin Moore Paints product service representative Doug Hahner says: “The only time we recommend oil over acrylic is for a primer on exterior bare wood” (because it is subjected to rain, it benefits from the barrier that oil-based paint provides). But even with exterior wood, after the alkyd primer, you can switch to latex: “It offers better color, gloss retention and flexibility than an oil finish coat,” advises Hahner. For the interior of your house, acrylic should be the rule. Not only are the fumes less intense, but oil paint tends to yellow when it is not exposed to constant sunlight. Any surface that has been previously painted with oil paint can be repainted with latex paint, but preparation is necessary. “As with any old paint,” says Hahner, “the surface should be lightly sanded and primed before repainting.” Special primers like Sherman-William’s PrepRight Anchor Bond will work well. Ideally a window seat is built into a window recess. This way you can sit with your back against the wall with a book in your lap and also enjoy the window view. Don’t overlook the storage possibilities a window seat with a lift-up top can offer.

If your room does not have a recess, combining the bench with two higher cabinetry pieces will achieve the same effect. Flanking a few ready-made low bookcases strong enough for sitting with higher ones provides open shelves for books and display, along with a place to nest (make sure to attach the cabinets to each other so they don’t slide apart). A window seat with drawers can give easy access to blankets in the bedroom or pots and pans in the kitchen. The finished seat (with cushion) should be between 12 and 18 inches high; the lower height is fine for reading a book, but if you want to be able to use the seat as a banquette for dining, it should be at least 16 inches high. For comfort, deeper is better, but the seat should be at least 15 inches deep.

Choose a wall that doesn’t get direct sunlight: Designer Maxine Snider hung the collection she shares with her husband in an upstairs hall. Use a frame with both glass and a mat: This will focus the image and keep the glass off the photo. A group of photographs can have the same impact as a single large work of art. Plain, similar-size frames will help unify a collection, but you need an organizing principle. “It can be as simple as lining up the tops of all the frames,” Snider instructs. The center of your grouping should be a little below eye level (in a living room where you’ll usually be seated, eye level is lower than in a hall). Arrange your composition on the floor, then cut pieces of paper the size of the frames. Place the cutouts on the wall and then pound in the hangers. Two picture hooks per frame will help keep them straight. And use a carpenter’s level — I can’t hang anything straight without one.