#70 The desk. Finished.

This is what Ben drew:

And this is the desk!


The desk I wrote about back in January is finally finished and it’s exactly what I was hoping for. I absolutely cannot say enough about it — it’s hands down my most prized possession in the world (except for maybe my engagement ring). This desk (the Lucky Luxe shipping and handling department) is made from the remains of my precious Aunt Mae Mae’s house that was built by my great great grandfather in 1909. The wood used to build the house was from a 300 year old yellow virgin pine tree, so that means this desk is technically 400 years old, right? I can’t quite explain to you how sentimentally special this is for me, my mama and her sisters… They spent so much of their childhood in that house with their grandparents who lived next door, but I remember it only as Mae Mae’s house. On days when mama had to work, when I was a little bitty girl, Mae would cook barbecued chicken and help me make scrapbooks about anything my heart desired, and I contribute a lot of my creativity to her influence in my formative years (she also made me draw the U.S. presidents and Disney characters and she would frame them and hang them in her living room). Uncle Bob would wash his cars in the yard and let me splash around in the water while he worked on hot summer days, Mae and I would go walking on her trails through the woods on Clark Hill, and all of those memories are bound up in the wood and nails that hold this amazing desk together.

Mr. Jack Manning has an artists’ eye, because he sorted through mountains of old porch floors and walls and spindles and doors, chose all the colors we love: aqua, grey, white, pale yellow and green, and made this piece that we will keep in the family forever. Let me show you a few details:

(cubby holes made mostly from the bedroom walls… oh how I LOVE that sea foam aqua color)

(the cabinets look like miniature barn doors and even used the house’s old screen door hinges)

(the countertop where all my LL packages will be lovingly wrapped for shipping to faraway places)

Best of all, this was not expensive at all. Man… I just can’t stop running down the hall to look at it!