A cabinet of curiosities

One of my summer projects was to clean out the tool cabinet. It was full of old finds; looking like it hadn't been cleaned out in decades...or maybe a century. There were antique items in there, like this beautiful cake tin, full of rusty screws.

The tool cabinet is located in the barn building. I used to keep my tools in the house, but as I'm working on emptying it for renovation, I thought it would be better to find another place to store them. Also, it was brought to my attention that chain saws leak some oil, so it's better not to keep the in the house. Last winter I brought all my tools back to the city, but honestly, it's a bit too much faffing about with the back and forth, so it was better to find the tools a home at the cottage, where I'll need them.

This is how it started out. Well...technically I already removed some old paints and thinner last fall and took those to recycling. But it was quite dirty and full of junk...and also some cool finds!

There was this tray, filled with old paint pigments and brushes. Some of the paint brushes were worn to the nub...I didn't even know you could wear brushes down like that. Maybe I should have saved some, as a testament to the frugality of past owners.

There was this succession of clothes irons. The first ones would have been warmed on the stove, the two newer ones seemed to have electrical connectors. I saved these. 

These are some of the old tools I found and kept, at least for now. There were some that genuinely looked a hundred years old. Maybe I won't save every little file and rasp that I find, but tools with homemade handles I find worthy of keeping as part of the history of the home. Also, some of them I might need someday, like a tree debarker.

The cabinet was really dusty and dirty. Some wood tar had spilled on this shelf. There was no cleaning it up, so I opted for removing the worst planks. The smell was just so pungent and of course it's sticky, too. I also removed all the old shelving paper, and scrubbed the cabinet, top to bottom. I even made a top for the cabinet from some tongue-and-groove that I found in the same room. They were just the right amount and length for it, what are the odds? I used some bargain-bin wallpaper to cover the shelves, in spirit of the old shelving paper I removed. 

Honestly, I find it a bit heartbreaking to clean up something like this, because I find the layers of history really fascinating. Cleaning everything up, rearranging and discarding items removes the visual evidence of passage of time. I wonder if that's why the previous owners never cleaned this up. It's like when you're at your grandparents' house, and there's a shelf with knickknacks that's always been there. Or at the summer cottage, there is always that same shampoo bottle from the 1970's or the funky peg rail, made of old thread spools. You find comfort in how something just stays the same. 

This really was a cabinet of curiosities for me, but ultimately, I don't live in a museum. I can keep some of the objects, but I got to live my life.

This is what it looked afterwards! My tools are all organised now. The little mascot was hanging on the door knob of the cabinet originally, I moved him up to a better spot. I remember thinking that he was scary with his red eyes, but he grew on me. He can watch over the storage room and tell the squirrels to sod off.

Until our next adventure,

-L