Madeline Bilis

1 week ago | bostonglobe.com | Madeline Bilis

For all its varied landscapes, towns, and people, New England is a compact region. From many points in Massachusetts north of Boston, for example, you can drive to Boston, New Hampshire, and Maine — all within an hour or less. When it comes time to start house hunting, some buyers can ostensibly browse in one or all of the three states. They might assume the cost of living is roughly the same in each, but the numbers show something different — even when a home’s sale price stays the same.

1 week ago | realsimple.com | Madeline Bilis

Photo: Zoonar RF/Getty Images There comes a time during dish-washing duty when you have to empty your sink strainer. After a few minutes of catching bits of food scraped off of plates and cups, you probably pause to tap it on the edge of your trash can, eliminating the buildup. Now that it’s empty once again, you can continue washing and rinsing. But after several nights of this, that strainer has probably gotten pretty grimy.

2 weeks ago | realsimple.com | Madeline Bilis

Storing items in the oven, even oven-safe cookware, poses a fire hazard. Using the oven for storage is inefficient and can lead to more clutter and wasted energy. Experts recommend exploring more functional, long-term storage options instead. When it comes to storing things inside the oven, there’s one famous example that comes to mind for many: Carrie Bradshaw’s maneuver on Sex and the City. In the show, she stashes neatly folded piles of expensive clothes in her New York City apartment’s oven.

2 weeks ago | bostonglobe.com | Madeline Bilis

When Jayne O’Brien lost her husband Bill suddenly in March 2024, she faced two difficult challenges. While dealing with shock and grief, she also wondered where she would live. The couple had been living in Bill’s home in Eastham during their five-year marriage, but after his death, his daughter inherited the house. O’Brien, 71, still owned a home in nearby Brewster, which she’d been renting to her son and his girlfriend. Her son promptly offered to move out, but O’Brien declined.

3 weeks ago | boston.com | Madeline Bilis |Kaitlyn Johnston

Every year — sometimes as early as February — Sept. 1 apartment vacancies start popping up around Boston. For renters in search of a new place, it marks the beginning of an open season of sorts, where thousands of people shuffle in for apartment tours across the city. Although roughly two-thirds of all leases in Boston turn over on Sept. 1, it can still be a challenge to find the rental of your dreams.