I have wanted a card catalog cabinet for years; I loved playing with the one in my mom’s library as a kid.

So imagine my surprise when I happened to be in my mom’s garage the other day and saw this 6′-plus cabinet just sitting there.

My mom says she tracked this down and bought it for me almost two years ago, as a housewarming gift when we bought our house. But due to some sort of crazy miscommunication between the two of us she thought I didn’t want one of these cabinets any more, and she decided not to give it to me in case I didn’t like it. So it’s been sitting in her garage for nearly 2 years, and I had no idea it existed. I found it by accident, and now I’m obsessed with getting it home and fixing it up.

We brought two tiers of drawers home today in our car, and we’ll have to go back for the other 2 tiers and the legs.

My plan is to strip off all the old varnish, clean it up, and stain it a dark color (which will match 90% of the furniture in our house). So now I’m reading about stripping varnish, sanding, refinishing, staining. It’s exciting stuff, and I just have to decide which room this will live in once it’s done. Very, very cool.