A Cabinet For Mrs. Barn — The Wood

One of the challenges of “downsizing” is finding furniture to hold your stuff and fit in the new, smaller space.  This was particularly nettlesome for us as we moved from a 16′ x 24′ bedroom to one that was half that size.  For several years we had been searching antique shops for a small cabinet to hold some of Mrs. Barn’s clothing (fortunately we are blessed with two large closets here) but never could find something to fit nicely.  There ws only one place in our little bedroom for such a cabinet, and the size was very specifically determined by that space.

Instead she did something that had not occurred in more than three decades of connubial bliss — she asked me to make a piece of furniture for her.  Not just a piece of furniture but one made from vintage chestnut, a wood she likes very much.

So I did.

My source of vintage chestnut was unsurprisingly the old shack that my brother, nephew and I tore down three summers ago, a grand week of camaraderie whose ending punctuation was me laying in the hospital with a broken hip.  The shack had been a living quarters, probably in the 1930s according to the newspapers pasted to the wall.  The entire roof structure was chestnut, and the walls and floors were white oak.  The haul was pretty impressive.

In the intervening time the wood was stacked nicely in the lower log barn awaiting my attentions.

Up next – prepping the stock and joinery