From Radio Cabinet to Dresser

“Grandpa,” fourteen-year-old Scott approached his aged companion. “I need a dresser for my room.” 

“Is that so?” Richard responded thoughtfully. “Lets head to the barn and see if we can find something we can work with.”

The pair walked out of the small workshop door and took an immediate right. They trudged slowly up the grassy hill to the gravel driveway and turned left, towards the barn. 

The big bank barn stood silhouetted against the cloudy sky. The walls of the barn had originally been painted gray. They were still gray, but it was hard to tell if it was colored from the paint or from years of exposure to the various Ohio weather patterns. The bright, corrugated aluminum roof shone in the intermittent sunshine as a number of black and white heifers milled about in the barnyard. A green pickup truck sat on the slope of the east bank, rust slowly creeping across it's surface. The primary feature of the barns north side was it's oversized sliding doors. 

Richard walked up to an unmarked man door and pulled a string. The string was attached to a hook on the inside. Once the hook was disengaged, the door was able to swing open towards the outside. The younger Henning hung back until his grandfather unlatched the hooks that secured the larger sliding door. Richard pushed it open to his right, allowing the daylight to flood into the upper floor of the barn. Scott stood in the doorway for a minute taking in the sight. His grandpa's flat bed wagon sat in the middle, in front of an old corn picker that hadn't been used in years. A forage wagon and a bale wagon sat in the west bay. The west haymow was stacked with hay bales. The east mow was used primarily for storage. That was the mow of interest on this particular day. 

They walked down an unintentional isle through a large variety of odd and somewhat obscure items. There was an old lawn tractor to the right, an old fashioned traveling trunk to the left. A stack of fifty-five gallon drums stood against the east wall while picnic tables stood on end against the south wall. They sorted through the elder Henning's stockpile of obscurities until Richard came upon and item that caused him pause.

“What do you think of this?” Richard asked as he gestured to a slightly odd looking piece of furniture.

Scott looked it over carefully before answering. The piece was made out of wood. It stood about three feet tall and four feet wide. The face of the piece had four panels with a handle in the middle of each one. The teenager reached forward and tugged on the handle of the top left panel expecting it to pull out like a drawer. Instead, the panel pivoted at the bottom and revealed a strange control panel of sorts.

“What is this thing, Grandpa?” Scott inquired with confusion thick in his voice.

“This is an old radio cabinet,” Richard explained. “Radios used to take up a lot more space so they made them into furniture. This door here is the radio. The one right next to it used to be a record player. This door on the bottom used to be the speaker and the other one was used to store records.”

“Wow,” Scott marveled. “That's pretty sweet. It kinda reminds me of the old wooden TV's but cooler.”

“So, what do you think?” Richard pressed.

“I think it's pretty cool,” Scott responded with excitement. “Are you sure you want to change this into a dresser?”

“Well,” Richard responded in his trademark deliberation. “I don't suppose it's doing anyone any good just sitting here in the barn, now is it?” 

The next few weeks were fairly busy for the cross-generational team. They loaded the radio cabinet into Richard's garden cart and rolled to the small, back room workshop. The radio cabinet took up a large percentage of the workshops floor space, but nobody seemed to mind. They removed the radio components from the one compartment and removed both front panels. They built boxes that were attached to the face panels which created drawers. The back of the cabinet had sustained some water damage and had to be replaced with a new panel. Richard insisted on staining and varnishing the new back panel even though Scott insisted that the back of the piece would be against the wall and nobody would ever know it wasn't finished.

“Ahh, but you'll know now won't you? And someday that'll bother you.” Richard had responded.

There was a small spot on the top of the piece that had been damaged by water. Richard stirred together a mixture of sawdust and wood glue, referring to the mixture as plastic wood. Using a putty knife, he worked the mixture into the cracks and crevices of the damaged portion until he was satisfied with the results. After it dried, he instructed his young assistant to sand it smooth. Applying just the right amount of stain, the elder man was able to blend the imperfection into the rest of the top panel to both of their satisfaction.

Finally, the job was done. Christa, Scott's mother, drove the family van up to her father-in-law's house trailer and stood by expressing concern for his welfare as the grandfather and grandson team loaded the bulky piece of furniture into the back of the van. Christa insisted that her oldest son would help Scott carry the newly converted dresser up to its destination, and left Richard to his own devices.

Caleb and Scott unloaded dresser and carried it into the house. As they passed their father, who was reading in his easy chair, they paused to show off the piece of furniture. Dale looked it over and smiled ever so slightly.

“Leave it to Dad,” he chuckled. “Leave it to Dad to give up the antique value of an old radio cabinet so that one of his grandkids could have a dresser.”