The Many Lives of the Simple Hoosier Cabinet – Sewing Machines Los Angeles

Several decades ago, a young bride purchased an old cabinet with thick white paint dripping around some colorful Mexican decals. When the father of the bride saw what she’d purchased, he expressed his disappointment in her choice and his shock at spending 55 good dollars on something his family had thrown out decades before. So it was in the late 1960’s: while the youth of the day was trying to find their own “style”, the humble Hoosier Cabinet was reborn and found a new life in new surroundings.

Our first home was as humble as our first piece of furniture: a flimsy clapboard house with no kitchen cabinets. Hooray for the Hoosier cabinet. It served as a breakfast counter and pantry. Before long we moved, and the cabinet got a new paint job; antiquing was all the rage and made quite an improvement.

With it’s new antique paint job, the cabinet moved into the tiny service porch across from the washing machine and became the sewing center; it held everything from spools of thread to lengths of fabric, and the pull out, enameled top served as a perfect surface for the sewing machine.

In time, we moved to our first home, and put the cabinet in the dining room and served as the bill paying desk with plenty of organized storage for stationary, pens, stamps and bills waiting to be paid. Later, the new piano arrived and took the space in the dining room; we moved the cabinet to the kitchen where, once again it served as a breakfast counter and storage for cereals, bowls and all things breakfast.

Finally, we moved to the new house we built here locally, and the cabinet got a final strip down of its antiquing. We refinished it in its original, beautiful, oak glory; we sure miss those original latches and hinges though. The old Hoosier Cabinet sits once again in the dining room and houses of all things, crystal glassware, table linens, and candles and on occasion, root vegetables in the tin bins.

One piece of furniture can have many uses over the course of its lifetime. One need only keep an open mind and re-think, re-purpose and re-use some old favorites.