The Magical Powell Curio Cabinet

A Feature Article By Marla James

Once upon a time (isn’t that the way all good stories begin?), actually it was yesterday, my boyfriend and I went shopping for a curio cabinet. We looked at all kinds of curio cabinets. We looked at wall mount curio cabinets, tall curio cabinets and cabinets in almost every furniture style.

Since my apartment was a big floor-space-challenged, I was really more interested in the wall mount curio cabinets but my boyfriend was really getting into the whole curio cabinet idea and insisted that we look at all of the possibilities before I made a decision.

As we shopped, my boyfriend described an antique curio cabinet that his grandmother owned. He said that as a boy he had been fascinated by it. He described the elegance of the piece as well as all of the treasures that were displayed in it. His story was interesting but I knew that there was no way that a big oak antique style curio cabinet was going to find enough space in my little apartment. I was focusing on wall mounted curio cabinets.

Finally, as I was about ready to give up finding what I wanted, my boyfriend stopped in front of a huge curio cabinet. It stood almost seven feet tall and was close to four feet wide. It appeared to be hand painted. I had to agree that it was magnificent and it WAS made by Powell but it wasn’t what I could use in my small apartment.

My boy friend stood very still and then he took my hand and he said that if we were to get married, we could buy this Powell curio cabinet and spend our lives filling it with treasures that our grand children could be as fascinated by as he had been with his grandmother’s treasures.

We bought the magical Powell curio cabinet!