Jigsaw Puzzle Decorating

When I was about twelve, my dad gave me a box filled with lined cards and dividers. The cards were smaller than typical index cards and the box was about fifteen inches long, with a fitted lid. On the first card I wrote the title "Revelations of My Soul". I had borrowed those words from a vampire story I had recently read. I thought it was fitting. For the next several years, I filled those cards with thoughts, and quotes, and many, many revelations. When I moved away, I had a little ceremony, and burned the cards, along with all my teenage journals. It felt like a very grown-up thing to do. But, it never stopped me from collecting files. Over the years, I have had a variety of boxes, indexes, and furniture files. My first four drawer file was a Christmas gift, and I was thrilled with it. And I have always loved to write info on index cards. And drawers with labels are their own particular sort of heaven, I think. I am sure it seems disconcerting to a lot of people, but I am comforted by paper. Now that I live in my tiny space, you can see that there isn't a lot of room for furniture, but I employ my own kind of jigsaw puzzle decorating. I long for "white space", and fantasize about becoming a minimalist, but obviously, I don't want it enough to leave any gaps unfilled! If I can find a way to fit something in, I will do it. My granddaughter used to call our house the house of doors and drawers, because I had so many cupboards and drawers in it. I don't have a lot of cupboards and drawers anymore. I only kept my favorites. And I have found a way to fit them in to my space. My latest treasure is shown above. I fell in love with this metal file cupboard at a store nearly a hundred miles, away. And it took four trips to get it home! The first time I had to find a place that it would fit. The second trip, I went back to see it again, measured and purchased it. The third trip was a miscalculation. We found it was just a smidge too long to fit in my daughter's vehicle. And after the fourth, and final trip, it came to live with me. And it is perfect. It has thirty six pullout drawers, and holds file folders and magazines. All of them are labeled. I do love labels.
The picture below is a cupboard I have had for many years. It is oak with sliding doors below, and seventeen drawers above. All labeled, of course. It also has two pull out "bread board shelves", so I can use it as a desk. Some people may think that is a lot of file drawers for a tiny room, but I've never made a secret of the fact that I would live in a library if I could. For the first two years that I lived here, this favorite cupboard was in storage. And finally, I decided to move some of the more traditional furniture, and find a place for it. My rooms came furnished.  Very new and nice, but never to my taste. I've lived here now for three years, and keep adding my own things back in. I think of myself like Mary Kate in the movie, "The Quiet Man". Do you remember how she just wanted to have"her things about her"? John Wayne wasn't enough. She needed her antique furnishings too.
I know it looks very crowded, and my style of decorating these days is layered, labeled, and stacked. Sometimes, I think that everything I have is on top of something else. My rooms are actually taller than they are wide, so it seems that the only way to go is up.