An Old Secretary Desk with Hutch

I've been spending a few minutes here and there over the past week arranging things in the new addition to the upstairs hall - a vintage secretary desk with hutch made by The National Table Company, a furniture company that used to exist in Owen Sound. It was given to us by Mike's aunt, although it originally belonged to...I think Mike's great Grandma? Someone in the family will read this and correct me if I'm wrong...

When we first got the secretary, it lived in the spare bedroom (you can sort of see it here), but it was totally under utilized, and I didn't like that one of my most favourite pieces of furniture wasn't being showcased as it should be. Moving it into the hall by myself was a bit of a challenge, especially since I didn't realize at first that it was too tall to fit through the doorway. I managed to block myself into the spare bedroom, but thankfully there was a screw driver kicking around in there so that I could remove the hutch portion.

Once I had it into the hall and back together, Meowzer took it upon herself to immediately investigate.


Trying to take decent pictures in the upstairs hall is nothing short of infuriating even though I'm starting to grasp the basics of the manual setting; one of these days I'll have to get up early in the morning to shoot with all of the bedroom doors wide open to try and get as much natural light as possible (the wood of the secretary is looking quite orange here, but in person it's a nice medium dark walnut colour).


In the spare bedroom, the hutch was full of books. While useful, it didn't look very attractive. I love this piece of furniture, so I thought it would be best to jam it full of other things I love that hadn't found a home yet. That's not to say that I don't love books, of course! They'll just find another home. Before loading it up, I cut some pieces of foam board to size, and covered them in some discontinued fabric I found at Fabricland. I first saw this fabric over on Rambling Renovators and immediately fell in love. I had plans to hit Fabricland after work the same day and what do you know...there it was. The hutch was looking a little bit like a black hole before, but I think the fabric did a good job of brightening it up, while still looking traditional enough to fit in.



I'll get around to a rundown of what I've got goin' on up in there when/if I ever get better pictures.

So tell me, is there any display creating going on in your life?

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