What I'm up to now

I have been looking for over a year for the perfect table to go in my keeping room next to the sofa. I found this secretary in a consignment shop, and was so sad that it had that gigantic box on top, because everything else about it is perfect: the size, the colors, and the distressed state of it.

And the legs! Oh, the legs!

I walked past this piece of furniture about five times, bemoaning the fact that it couldn't just be a table.

And then I remembered: my husband is quite a handy woodworker. So I bought the cabinet, crammed it into the SUV, and brought it home. I'm pretty sure the hubby thought I was nuts when he first saw it. It wasn't easy to remove the top part, because it was glued on, but he managed without doing too much damage to the edge. We're going to have to construct a new top, because the boxy part was not sitting on solid wood, but I think we can pull it off. We're hoping to be able to use the routed edge, and perhaps use the back of one of the cabinet doors for an insert.

Here it is in its new home, sans a real top, which we are still working on. I'll post "after" photos when we complete the project. Meanwhile, even though he thinks I'm nuts, I'm still crazy about those legs.

And in case you're concerned, I did save all the gorgeous hardware. Look for it in future projects. Plus, there was a bonus: when we took the cabinet part off the base, we found a little hidden cache of papers including bills, receipts, stamps, bank statements and a photograph, most from the 30's and 40's. That was almost as exciting to me as the furniture itself.