legacy

Remember when I teased you about a family heirloom?

Wonder no more, as I've got pictures and the story about the dentist cabinet! Here's the backstory (per my mom):

The cabinet belonged to Grandma Louise Pittman. It was her sewing / thread cabinet. Grandma did a lot of sewing. I recall my mother talking about the dresses Grandma made Mom and Ellen Joy during the Great Depression. I assume that she made all of their school dresses, even with Grandpa being the manager of Thatcher Glass Co. I think she would add embroidery for decoration. Grandma was quite artistic. Grandma made some clothes for us children and always made them extra big so it could be let out and let down when we grew. Also, I remember that they would come to our house (we never went anywhere on vacation; COWS) for a week, probably every year. Grandma would use Mom's sewing machine and make slip covers for chairs and the couch. I remember Grandma having / using the cabinet when she lived at the farm in Hebron (1968-ish to 1972).

While I was growing up, it lived in my dad's workshop, so it got really dusty and a bit dirty. Because I'm using it to hold paper, I needed to clean it out and also wanted to make it pretty. I cleaned up the drawers first.

Then I cleaned and stripped the top of the main part of the cabinet. Once that was cleared, I stained the top and then moved it downstairs to my craft room. Knobs were reattached, glass panels reinserted and now it's half full of paper!