Battered and gun-metal grey

I have a story of partnering with a client in her art room, which doubled as her file room. Magnificent space: her art on the walls, friends’ and family’s creations everywhere. Everything in its place, and a place for everything, supplies precisely at the ready in splendid wood cases to support inspiration. Her files, in glorious contrast, lay in offensive heaps on the floor, barricading her access to her luxurious, solid wood, meticulously finished worktable and chairs. Her files lived in a battered, one-step-above-Army-surplus, gun-metal grey sheet steel cabinet, the kind that doubles as a thunder machine when you hit it too hard. Did I persuade her to get rid of
– first and only time I’ve ever uttered that! – that THING and replace it with something wood? OH YEAH, as soon as possible, first working session. And she did, and she did, and wow her filing got easier.

I used to have a lovely little wood filing cabinet, perfect for my needs. And it broke, and I replaced it with two acceptable, proudly undinged, not-hideous, dark grey sheet steel cabinets. And I do my filing, not on a routine but often enough. I save it up for down-time de-stressing – OK, yes, I’m strange, filing is soothing. But I’ve just let myself have wood again: wanted something with a smaller footprint than the two metal units, and celebrating some recent professional successes. Because everyone needs a comfortable environment, not just a bearable one. Again, you can enrich your home, or office for that matter, on the cheap – this new piece was in the clearance section and I spent a while hunting. Or simply, with a couple of plants, colored light bulbs in some of the lamps. So the last question, of course – will I be better about my filing?