Here’s something you may have seen on some of my craft room project photos-this super cute, newly made over filing cabinet! I LOVE this piece, it adds a ton of function to my space! It allows me to hide all of our files that we have to keep and tons of photos and photo albums that I don’t want out, but I don’t want in the garage in a tote either.
When I started searching yard sales and Craigslist for filing cabinets my husband just rolled his eyes at me. He didn’t understand my NEED to do a filing cabinet makeover instead of just buying a new one. It’s all about the money baby! Also there was another reason…I am NOT a fan of high glossy metal filing cabinets. I knew I could find one and paint it a semi gloss-more on the flat side and be lots happier.
After weeks of not being able to find the one I wanted through other outlets I asked my friends on Facebook and within the hour I had scheduled a time to go pick up this thing up! I don’t know why I didn’t just ask them in the first place! I was willing to pay for one (I was actually looking at getting 2 taller ones, but this one is even better) but my friend was getting rid of this from the insurance office that she worked at for FREE. 🙂 Can’t beat free!
Filing Cabinet Makeover
I first prepped the surfaces by sanding it all and giving the paint something to adhere to. We took out the drawers and the inserts in the handles and sanded them all down too. 
I used this Rustoleum Ultra Cover Paint+Primer in Semi-Gloss that we picked up at Home Depot and we got this spray painting gun…why haven’t I had this in my life before?!?! It made spray painting so much more enjoyable! I got the paint + primer so that we didn’t have to prime them first….I’m not going to lie though, it took almost 4 cans of paint to get the cabinet covered and I thought that was a bit much. It felt like the first two coats were primer and the last two actually started giving us the coverage I expected.
My husband thought I was looney toons for not getting a high gloss (“It’s a filing cabinet, it’s supposed to be shiny!”), but after it was all done he loved it too. Everyone who has come in and seen the room has commented on the filing cabinet and how they love that it is not shiny. 🙂 Success!
This baby is HEAVY, like two men need to move it from one place to the next and a furniture dolly has to be used to get it up the stairs. My husband says it is now a permanent fixture in this room. I’m cool with that. It feels like it was made for this space anyway!
I have been hemming and hawing about what I can do to embellish it a bit. I thought I wanted to put some vinyl on it, but I never could settle on what color, or what phrase or image. I thought about putting some cute stencil on the top in a mint or coral color, but again nothing was feeling right. I finally decided what to do when I was taking photos for this post! I grabbed my Happy Campers 6×6 paper pad from We R Memory Keepers and found my favorite pattern paper and cut strips to put in the handles. 
I didn’t glue them or anything. I like to be able to change things up easily, which is why I went with white in the first place. I am now officially in LOVE with my filing cabinet makeover. What do you think?
Tiffany
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