Long time readers to this site know that much of the furniture (especially in the great room) was picked up from local auction houses.
Now that we have what we need, I rarely scroll through auction offerings, but last year around this time I was in the market for some sort of drawer storage for my office. I checked the usual online retailers and any decent table/desks with multiple drawers not only cost several hundred dollars, but also required a lot of assembly work.
As luck would have a couple of local houses had a few options in their June catalogs. I managed to snag the one I liked the most: a walnut Davenport desk from the mid 1800s. All I then had to do was find time to drive up to Alameda and pick it up.
A year later I’m still in love with it! So useful with drawers just the right size, the upper storage under the desk-bit is great for random craft supplies and thanks to some casters I found at our local Ace Hardware, it is quite mobile.
Best of all, tucked inside the wee top drawer was a receipt from a shop in in Southwold, England dated March 25, 1933. Seems someone in Surrey bought the desk and then sometime in the last 90 years it made its way to California.
