I cannot recommend Anderson & McQuaid Co, Inc. highly enough! They have an incredible selection of hardwood moldings with every profile imaginable. I've purchased crown moldings and door casings here, and the quality is always top-notch. What really sets them apart, though, is the customer service. I worked with Bob, who was a lifesaver. He helped me select the perfect profile for my project and expertly calculated exactly how much material I needed. To top it off, he had an associate cut the long pieces so they would fit safely in my car, while carefully ensuring the lengths I actually needed for the installation remained intact. Truly an excellent experience from start to finish--I will definitely be back for my next project! read more

They had the wood that I couldn't find! What an interesting place! So much cool wood! Next time I won't go 20 min before closing do I can really look around. The wood I bought (maple 1-3/4 x 1/3/4 ) was great quality. read more

Bob in the molding department is an encyclopedia! Whenever I need to find moldings or anything custom, he can identify it by a sample or a photo and if he doesn't have something exact he has creative ideas to make another molding work read more

Bob your employee is fantastic, knowledgeable, courteous and a pleasure to work with. We keep coming back!

I don't normally write reviews (but depend on them for everything, of course) however I felt compelled to share how awesome this place is. My husband and I bought a historic 1903 home 2 years ago, and finally started to tackle molding. Home Depot wasn't going to cut it. While we used National Lumbar to replace our entire deck, the stock molding was completely limited. I had to look through an online catalogue for their outsourced Metrie molding and couldn't even get prices unless I knew exactly what I wanted to order. And then I'm not even seeing or touching it before deciding. Then I find out about Andersen. I'm intrigued and bummed it's in Arlington (I'm in Needham) and not open on weekends. But before the holidays I worked remote and made a trip. I was completely intimidated- I'd never been to a lumbar yard and it's a bit hard to find (I walked into TWO wrong Andersen places first) but finally found the right warehouse. I must have spent two hours there looking at samples, reviewing prices, looking at more samples, comparing more prices, playing around with different profiles. I bothered Bob and Brett endlessly with any question I could think of and they were so friendly, authentic- I was just having fun being completely absorbed with all the possibilities. I left without a buying a thing and was back a couple weeks later. I played around with more samples and because I couldn't bear to walk out without buying something again, I bought a couple of 8 footers of something random. I had to compensate this great place! Finally, I went back a week later ready to purchase. At this point, it really felt like home there and it was fun to just watch Bob Brett and the rest of the guys helping everyone (and me) on whatever sized project they had. We finished our first project- a 3 piece crown molding in our dining room- last month and I dragged my husband with me a few days ago to gather up a ton more molding for lots of other rooms. We both took the afternoon off from work for it... and it did not disappoint. The place delivered on what I told my husband it would be like. Not to mention, with all the moulding we bought, tying it to the roof of our car was a tall order. Bob and Chris went way above and beyond and didn't let us leave until our car was safely packed up. Not because they had to (they don't) but because they just care about the people that visit. To say that I am a lifetime customer is obvious, but to say that I truly enjoy visiting this place, visiting the people that make it wonderful, and getting endlessly inspired is more accurate. read more

Anderson & McQuaid - Building Supplies Near Me - Cambridge, Massachusetts

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Love this shop. Love the huge selection of everything from standard to historic available. If only they were still open on Saturdays. :-(

Needed 4' of lumber for a new threshold. Ended up at Anderson & McQuaid in Cambridge, MA. Front desk got me to the correct warehouse. Warehouse guy spent 10 minutes with me helping me to select the correct wood. And I got some scrap (board was split on end) to make plugs with. Excellent customer service. Highly recommend them (Thanks again, Bob, greatly appreciated the guidance!). read more

Cannot speak highly enough of AM. My wife and I came today to look at a bunch of trim samples. Bob helped us and was absolutely amazing to deal with. Usually at these places, I dread getting someone helping us who makes you feel like you're inconveniencing them. Bob was the complete opposite. Friendly, affable, knew all the trims inside and out, had awesome design suggestions. So much stress was taken off my shoulders in picking the trim for a house I'm flipping. They let you take free samples of the trim which is so generous and their prices are fair. I very, very strongly recommend this business for your trim/moulding needs. read more

Wow! What a selection and staff!!!! Bob and other staff members were knowledgeable and patient. They know their stuff. I never got the feeling that they catered to "contractors only". The trims were awesome, and they gave us plenty of samples. Love this place, selection and professionalism. Bravo! read more

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Great place to go for that special type of wood. Nothing that a big box store would ever have. The staff is great and very helpful, special thanks to Mike and Angel. The different types of wood and moldings are awesome and quite different than the average lumber supplier. read more

I've used A&M a few times while restoring our Victorian farmhouse. They have a broad selection and when I didn't find an exact match on some baseboard cap the dude there was *actually* helpful in offering some relevant substitutes. read more

Fantastic service and product collection. We do lots of historic renovations and I've always left with a product that's a near perfect match. The staff is friendly and very helpful in the selection process. Highly recommend Anderson McQuaid! read more

Anderson & McQuaid is an amazing resource for pros and for DIY homeowners. There are two main sections of the store: precut moldings and hardwoods/exotic lumber. Their standard moldings are made from poplar which is a relatively inexpensive hardwood that is good if you are planning on painting your molding. The prices are excellent. To give a comparison to the Home Creapo pricing: Colonial casing molding in hardwood poplar was about half the price of the same profile shape in pine at the Depot. You can dent the pine with your fingernail but you really have to bang a piece of poplar to dent it. They will match custom moldings from your house (for a premium) and they also stock lots of molding in different species. The prices for flat stock of hardwoods from various species are the best prices I have found without driving to New Hampshire or Maine. I haven't seen any rough cut lumber, so pretty much everything is planed smooth and ready to take a finish. If you don't know much about lumber read up of the differences between lineal footage (length) and board footage (12" x 12" x 1") and the nominal sizes of quarters like 4/4 (4 quarters of an inch rough cut to more like 3/4 of an inch planed down). There are tons of web resources explaining this stuff. The folks that work there are super friendly and helpful and won't eat you alive if you're a newbie. read more

Incredibly helpful place. We were looking for some oak moldings to frame a large name board that had to match the formal oak design of the room. We came with only a vague idea of what we wanted/needed. The person who helped us (I think his name was Bill) was unbelievably helpful. He patiently showed us many samples, came up with interesting ideas for how to combine moldings into a more complex outline, and had innovative solutions on how we could save money. He tried out several pieces of each outline that we needed to find the best color match. He wrapped the pieces very carefully and even carried the bundle out to our car! The resulting frame has gotten rave reviews from everyone who's seen the finished product. We never could have done it without Bill's help and advice. A wonderful (and unique) experience. read more

I had my first visit to this place and it was fantastic. The boys in Bldg. 1 were extremely helpful and professional. I walked in at 5mins. to closing with questions and they were just super!! Big kudos to them!!! read more

It's true this place really kicks the crap out of Home Depot. I don't know anything about the exotic hard woods that the other review talks about. Not one aspect of my design would call for such a thing. It's cheap trim and moulding to fill in drafts and mismatched windows and walls. If it were a perfect world of structure and sustainability people would trim their windows, ceilings and lower walls with aloe plants or jolly ranchers, but I guess for now I must use wood. But this place is the place to get trim. I will shop here while I anxiously awaiting MDF to become more eco-friendly. When this happens I really really hope these guys kick Home Depot's ass once again! But this is all coming from a girl who grew up in a geodesic dome.. read more

I have been building cherry wood furniture and clocks for several years; and will only purchase from Anderson & McQuaid. Yes, there is a bit of effort involved in selection, but you get to do it your self. My only issue is the price. They are not the cheapest, but they are the best. For my needs, it's worth the extra time and money to go there. read more

Review for woodworkers: Overall a positive experience. I'm sure I'll return for small projects, but a few issues: As has been stated, you have to buy the full board. Depending on the scale of your work that can really blow your materials budget. Also the shorts aren't discounted from what I can tell. I paid more for 2 oak shorts than a full clear cherry board. They also only sell dimensional lumber. I prefer to buy in the rough for several reasons - price being one of them. The selection is probably great for the area, but you'll find more wood and more space to look it over outside the city. I'll probably continue to visit occasionally, but for anything but a small project I'll likely head up to Highland in NH. read more

I came here today to try and match some very old molding that we needed for a historic restoration, the 2 guys who assisted me were extremely helpful, patient, very knowledgeable, and true gentleman. They found me exactly what I needed and I left there feeling better about the experience then I did about the molding! But I did feel great about the molding too! Thanks, I will be back, this place is great. read more

I walked into Anderson & McQuaid and showed the gentleman behind the desk a sample of the molding I came for for my 1896 house. He directed me to Building 1 and said the options of wood were poplar or sapele. I went back to Building 1 and was immediately and cheerfully greeted by Bob! He found what I was looking for, brought it to my car, and loaded it effortlessly. Exceptional and fast service all around. I highly recommend! read more

Terrific service from Bob! Very Knowledgeable and very patient! He knows everything about moldings. Ask for him!

Short review: Definitely go there for moulding. Decent place for dimensional hardwood. Good prices. They publish the info you need online. I don't think their hardwood lumber is ethically billed, though. They also won't sell partial boards. You must buy the entire board at whatever length they say it is, even when it falls short of what they're billing you for. The final huge issue is the layout. Since all boards are stacked on top of each other, you must remove a board to inspect it. All home centers and most lumber stores I have been to stack boards in front of one another, so you can search through them quickly. This place is tough to review. I am a hobbyist woodworker and shopping for their hardwoods. They have a great selection of species and their prices are good. I really love that they publish their pricelist online. Their red oak is cheaper than Lowes and Home Depot. I especially love that they sell walnut, cherry, quartersawn white oak. The staff is friendly. I want to love the place, but my experience left much to be desired. I can't recommend the place without warning. Inspect the goods before buying. Bring a tape measure so you can figure out how much of the board you can actually use once you cut off the bark and major defects. Keep in mind that they will not sell partial boards. They actively try to cheat you on hardwoods. I found multiple expensive hardwood boards where they rounded up or charged you for dimensional lumber with significant bark on it. For most folks, dimensional lumber is surfaced on 4 sides and has no holes. For Anderson McQuaid, that is not the case. They will sell you $200 1x12 boards with holes in the middle of the board big enough to stick 2 fingers through and have over a foot of the length with the bark still on. Many of their boards which are not up to full width. For example, a 1x4 is .75 x 3.5". They'll sell you 14' dimensional 1x4 boards where only 12' is 3.5" wide and the rest is 2.5 to 3.25" and covered in bark. If you're edge-gluing boards, you have to cut off 2', yet pay for it. This is acceptable for rough-cut lumber, which is sold for significantly cheaper. however, Anderson McQuaid is selling dimensional lumber and charging you dimensional lumber prices. In my opinion, it is fraudulent to charge someone for 14' of 1x4 if only 12 of those feet are even close to 3.5" wide. I just built a desk from their lumber. I had to factor in somewhere between $30 and $50 of lost material due to their questionable billing. The loss was from them charging me for dimensional boards with bark on them and holes larger than 1". Had I known of a better place to get walnut in my area, I would have gone elsewhere. The other major issue with their hardwoods is that you should expect to be there for a very long time. For a lot of their stock, you cannot inspect the material yourself as it is on their upper floor. For their ground floor stock, everything is piled on top of each other. You cannot see the face of the board unless you pull it out and inspect it. The place is not particularly well lit either. This is a tedious process. For the project where I ended up wasting all that money, it took me 2h just to find enough boards that were close enough to suitable for use. Another example is that I like their red oak prices, but when I shop for oak, I am picky about the grain and only consider 5-10% of the boards candidates for purchase, let alone the boards I want for my piece. Since they don't keep their stock face forward, I may just pay a bit more to go somewhere else where I can find nice-grained boards much more quickly. So in conclusion, you can get good wood there, but it requires diligence on your part. However, their unethical overbilling is keeping me from enthusiastically recommending them. read more

I was amazed at the size of the inventory, the quality of the products, and the friendliness and expertise of the staff at Anderson & McQuaid. There is NO comparison between this place and Home Depot. We found the most amazing, thick, gorgeous beadboard for our kitchen renovation here - so much better than the overpriced, plywood junk sold at Home Depot! Their motto, "where details matter" says it all. Anderson and McQuaid: YOU ROCK! read more

If you are renovating, this shop has great decorative wood trim for the home. The merchandise savagely out classes the crap at Home Despot. If you are building, the selection of exotic hardwoods is phenomenal read more

What a pleasant​ surprise​! Although I needed only a small piece of birch to patch a floor​, I was given personal attention by a knowledgeable​ and good-natured​ staff. Brett was especially helpful in​ helping me color match​ the piece of wood I was buying to the wood on​ the floor. Anderson+McQuaid provides millwork for many large commercial clients but made time for my small order with courtesy and professionalism​. An ​annoying task, of finding a patch for a damaged floor turned into an interesting and fun little adventure. My thanks gentleman. read more

Love this Place!!! I looked everywhere for moldings made of a wood other than the standard home depot type and this place is the only place that carries them. You also don't need to be a contractor to get in and the service is great. I originally bought the poplar wood moldings from home depot and tried to stain them and they looked terrible. Except for the oak moldings, all Home Depot moldings seem to be of paintable grade. This place has a great variety of specialty and unique moldings that makes it worth the trip to Cambridge. read more

This place is my life saver almost on a daily basis. All good here....plenty of special moulding options and you can take cute little samples with you to show your client. ;) Its just the best...cant say enough. I really wish we had one of these closer to Maine for when I work up there but at least there is one of them ! read more

We had a great experience at Anderson & McQuaid. My girlfriend is an artist and was looking for wood for her painting stretchers. We found the employees helpful and friendly. They helped us to find the wood we needed for the job and cut it to to our specifications. He even gave us a 10 foot piece with a knot for the price of an 8 foot piece. Great place - I'd recommend it to anyone looking for dimensional lumber. read more

My fiancé and I went here to buy crown molding. We had a vague idea of what we were looking for but had never bought lumber like this before. We were so fortunate that Bob was so incredibly helpful - he showed us where to see the molding they offered, then brought us to the section where we could pick out what we needed, cut the pieces for us and checked us out quickly. Great customer service and very fair prices! Highly recommend especially for home improvement newbies! read more

The selection is great. The workmanship is outstanding. Special thanks to the folks who make the best mill work anywhere. You make my jobs better and my work more careful. Your quality products leave my clients impressed and satisfied. Your sales staff are friendly and knowledgeable. Bob is terrific. He has the numbers of all of the stock memorized. It's always a pleasure to visit. read more

This place has such a great inventory and very helpful staff members. Coming back for more as soon as I have the time/money for a wood project. read more