Illustration from Mansfield, Composition and Presswork for the Student of Printing, 1929

OK...here is where I start showing my wish list.  Pictured above is a double-wide type cabinet with a working top and an integral lighting fixture.  I actually have a double-wide with a working top in my garage.  Unfortunately, I have yet to reassemble it -- so if you were to ask me about my "composing room," I would have to make reference to all the component pieces strewn about the garage.  (Maybe when the kids get older they can help me.)  I also have two wooden type cabinets.  One is a full sized Hamilton cabinet and the other is a two-thirds sized cabinet.

Each drawer (actually referred to as cases) contains a full font of type.  The California Job Case illustrated below shows how the type is distributed in the case.  (This is referred to as the lay of the case.)

Illustration from Polk, The Practice of Printing, 1926 (rev. 1952)

I recently came across a trick for learning and remembering the distribution of type (specifically lower case).  It comes from Jamie Syer, but I don't know where it originated.

BCDEISFG
Be Careful Driving Elephants Into Small Ford Garages

LMNHOYPWcommas
Let Me Now Help Out Your Punctuation With commas

VUTAR
Villains Usually Take A Ride
(or, Villains Usually Take three-ems And Run)

They may seem crazy -- but having grown up with such things as, George Elliot's Old Grandfather Rented A Pink House Yesterday, I'm in the boat.

For anything you could possibly ever want to know about type cases, go to the following link:

The Alembic Press
A Fine Press creating and printing limited edition books by traditional letterpress.  (And the site of an extensive description of type case layouts.)

And no composing room would be complete without a reglet cabinet and a furniture cabinet (I actually have three furniture cabinets -- but that's another story).