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After the dresser was reconstructed (with heart pine used for the shelves, frame, and backer boards and poplar for the countertop), the kitchen gained not only an important piece of furniture, but it also helped visitors to the room see how the space functioned.  With the dresser in place, the kitchen was shown to have two distinct, and permanent, work areas.  First, the dresser formed a space where the food was prepared (chopped, mixed, peeled, etc.) and secondly the hearth, boiler, and oven created the space where the prepared food was cooked.  So in this case, the physical restoration of the kitchen not only recaptured what the space looked like in Madison’s time, but also how it was used.

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The recreated dresser in the North Cellar Kitchen.