Growing up, I always envied the kids who built gingerbread houses at home. My family and I rarely baked together in Brooklyn: Like many Asian diaspora families, we stored pots and pans (and our rice ...

Jeff Somers is a freelancer who has been writing about writing, books, personal finance, and home maintenance since 2012. When not writing, Jeff spends his free time fixing up his old house. He has ...

It is an odd thing, falling in love with a house. We encounter an inanimate object, made of wood and nails and glass and pipes—no moving blood or muscles, no sparkling brain. And yet, we are drawn to ...