dining room · lower wall · raised panel · oak
quartersawn oak, fitted by a man whose name is on the back of one of the panels and on no other document in the house. he wrote it in pencil; you would have to lift the entire run to read it. nobody will.
it ends at chair height so that chairs may meet wall without bruising either. the wood is darkest where shoulders have leaned while waiting for soup; the lightest place is behind the billiard table, where no one ever stands.
field-note · knock the third panel from the left. it returns a slightly different note. it is hollow on purpose; no one remembers why.
it meets the dado rail above and the skirting below; its grain runs back to the floorboards beneath.