Building it in

A lament: In a world full of houses with nooks and crannies and clever built-ins, we found ourselves living in the shadow of grave architectural oversight. I love our little wooden house, but the closest we had to an adorable built in was this:

I think you agree that this is not close at all.

Orange-y plywood, varnished within an inch of its life and then abused by renters for a few years just for spite. I’m getting around to the point: if one wants badly enough to be the type who lives in a house with gorgeous old built-ins, there might just be a way.

A few years ago, we met a woman who was de-n00king a beautiful 1940s bungalow in San Leandro. No more built-ins for her — she wanted the sleekness and modernity that only the completely cabinetless wall could offer.

Her minimalist kick was decidedly to our gain: we rented a truck and carried home a beautiful old cabinet that had spent the last 70 years standing by in a sunny little breakfast room off her kitchen. It solidly resents the subsequent two years it spent under a tarp next to our chicken shed, but Bill rescued it this fall and installed it in our guest-room-turned-progeny-containment-unit.

It is extremely true that now we have no closet in the second bedroom. You ask where we will be hanging all our things, and I say there will be just the folding of them and the putting away of them in drawers.

I guess we could get a wardrobe someday. But only if you insist.

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Category : where I live