March of Drawers

Dick set up shop in the house today. Even though it was still pretty hot outside (but fortunately no smoke from all the wildfires - knock on wood), I think it had more to do with wanting to be comfortable while he put the finishing touches on the antique oak legal cabinet he gave me awhile back.

It's been a lot (!) of work for him - sanding and re-finishing the 24 drawers; repainting the (hideous) southwestern-themed bottom section; cutting cedar inserts for each drawer; adding new hardware and more. The cabinet was designed to hold legal documents - it still had a few when we got it - and several of the original "Improved Woodruff File Holder" inserts, patented in 1884, were still intact.The cabinet now resides behind my big loom; the bottom section holds weaving books, tools and some coned yarn. I'm planning to use the upper drawers for skeined yarn and small weaving tools. It's hard to see in the photos (click any of them to embiggen) but each drawer has a small hole in the bottom center, where a metal rod originally kept the file holders in place. Eventually those holes will be filled with little drawer pulls, each one different, collected during our travels whenever we find something we like.A little whimsy and a lot of memories, all in one beautiful cabinet.