Discoveries coming together into a composed piece of interior decor
You’ve seen these drawers that have been all the rage for years now, I am sure. People love them and they get snatched up quicker than a ho at holiday season. They are also called printer cases and were originally used to store and organize individual metal or wooden letters, punctuation marks, and symbols for letterpress printing. Nowadays, people typically upcycle these trays into home decor projects. It can be a little challenging to figure out how to incorporate it into your space, especially if your style is more contemporary or an old-new mix. These trays tend to be large, have an industrial feel, and of course can be in varying levels of disrepair. If your vibe is kinda country, they are perfect, as is, leaned up against a wall.
I’d characterize our home as eclectic. Our design features many thrifted items, most of them vintage, but also incorporates modern elements. My partner likes clean lines and practicality - I like objects with history and a cacophony of patterns. For this particular project, I landed on something that decorates our front room, reflects one of my personal passions and functions as a learning tool for our one-year-old.
I picked up this drawer off someone on Facebook marketplace for fifteen bucks. I find them so rustically beautiful and had seen some people repurposing them as shelves for their curios. My pro tip here is that if your thrifting/hoarding has started to overflow your space and whomever you live with is giving you a hard side eye, start creating collections. Organizing makes things feel more intentional and you may find novel ways to display your treasures, instead of tucking them away in a closet or room somewhere. But back to the typeset drawer. I am an avid hiker and like to collect random things to bring nature back into my home with me -feathers, stones, rusty metal trash, etc. I make a point to do this when we travel, especially when we’re near a beach or forest. I wanted these souvenirs to be the focal point of this project.
There were several things that I thought about in terms of reconditioning the piece, although it did come to me in great shape. I had seen projects where people sealed the wood to preserve it and thought that might be a good idea. But in the end, I left it as is. I did condition it with some coconut oil because I am not a complete heathen. I opted to place the drawer on the radiator cover at the front of our home which sits below a big bay window. We are limited on wall space and honestly, this was easier. I actually love it there because it is easily accessible and encourages me to interact with it and reflect on my travels, pretty much daily. A meditation of sorts.
I have seen versions of this that are a little more permanent, but I prefer my approach because it's more like an ever evolving piece. I move stuff around constantly to change the feel a little. And a surprise benefit of this project is that it’s become a learning tool and a thing of fascination for our one year old. One way to encourage children to love the Earth and science is to regularly cultivate curiosity about the outdoors. We call it “The Specimens” and she picks two out everyday to hold and explore with her senses. I tell her about the fossils discovered in the Florida Keys, river stones and pine cones from forest hikes and old coins from a college trip to Europe. So, it’s a fun and easy way to introduce some science and sensory play, along with an injection of sentimentality.
If this does not quite fit what you’re looking for, I have seen beautiful renditions of a typeset drawer as a shelf for knick knacks or as a jewelry organizer, playing shiny things against the wood. There are projects where you add some metal legs and glass over top to make a curio coffee table. And others where you add wallpaper or any paper with visual interest to the back panels to create an up-cycled art piece. I even saw one where someone organized their child’s train set into a typeset drawer and it looked so sweet!
So, my advice is to scour your Buy Nothing groups, Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, etc. for one of these beauties and get to work!
