And It's Mine, Mine, Mine

I've finally found it!

And 5 points to Gryffindor if you can name the movie that the title of this post comes from!

Yesterday, you may have noticed this little gem on both my Instagram feed and the Rhody Life Facebook page.

I drove all the way from Rhode Island to the Connecticut/New York border to pick up my lovely.

And if you can't tell from the picture as to what this is, here's the full shot!

Isn't it beautiful?!?!?! Please ignore the paint swatches on the wall and the absolutely terrible picture quality - my real camera battery was dead and this was taken with only two hallway lights and no day light since it's dark at 5pm now.  

I can't believe that I found myself a library card catalog! I have been looking for one of these at a reasonable price for almost a year now.  I've driven to probably 10 different antique stores, in addition to emailing every library in Rhode Island (yes, seriously), and stalking Craigslist on a daily basis. I've seen plenty of these card catalogs pop up online, but they are either not the style that I was looking for, or the seller was asking over $750!  I paid way way less than that, even talking the seller down from his asking price, which is one of the benefits of buying items from Craigslist.

The piece isn't in perfect condition, but I knew that for the price that I wanted, that it wouldn't be perfect.  The wood veneer on one of the sides is missing a few pieces and is peeling, but that will just take some glue and replacement veneer to fix.  Also, one of the pulls is pinched closed, so I'll have to unbend that, and the shelves are a little wobbly.

I haven't quite figured out if I want to stain it a different color or if I should paint it.  Part of me thinks that this piece is so sacred that I should just clean it up as much as I can, but the other part of me wants to make it so colorful and fun, since I'm going to be using it in my craft room, holding all of my thread spools, my knitting needles, craft paints, and all those other fun things I use.

Here are some of my favorite inspiration pictures of what I'd like to do with the piece.

Image via DesignSponge

Image via Red Hen Home

Image via Dishfunctional Designs

What are your thoughts? Restain the card catalog? Paint it? Stain it dark or light? One color paint, or multiple?

Too many options!!!