New Life for an Old File Cabinet
- By Joan
- May 9, 2016
- 55 Comments
A few months ago I asked my daughter-in-law if there was any furniture they needed for their house. I’m always on the lookout for a project and since her birthday was coming up at the end of April, I thought I would get the gears going.
She mentioned that a file cabinet would be nice. Not too big, because their office was rather small.
Being a good mom, I asked my son if he also thought they needed a file cabinet. His answer…No.
So, I’m in their house taking pictures of their dump desk and I happen to look over at their current file cabinet and what do I see? It doesn’t have a top. OK, that is the last time I take advice from my son, I’ll just have to go through the boss.
The hunt was on.
A few weeks later I spot my victim. This plain old file cabinet waiting for me in a thrift store. Great size, could easily hold a printer and tons of paper only problem was…that sucker was heavy.
Here it is sitting in my kitchen waiting for a makeover and here it has sat for the last 2 months. It’s too heavy to carry downstairs to the workshop and if I carried it down then I would have to bring it back up.
With both my son and his wife being architects, I wanted their file cabinet to be reminiscent of an old architectural flat filing cabinet with the wood slats, small knobs and name plates.
At Home Depot I found oak strips in a couple of different widths, 3 and 4 inch. To help me decide which of the two I should use, I laid out 3 inch and 4 inch pieces of paper on my drawer.
It was just personal preference, but for this project, I liked the skinnier, 3 inch widths.
The oak strips were cut, sanded…
…then stained a dark walnut.
Attached the oak strips to the file cabinet with builders adhesive.
****Warning, warning, do not use water based builders adhesive with the oak strips. The moisture in the adhesive warps the oak terribly. This is a case of do as I say, not as I do. If the builders adhesive says it has easy clean up with water, don’t use it.
After I got the oak strips unwarped, I didn’t really trust the builders adhesive to hold the oak strips securely for the long haul. I used a metal drill bit to drill all the way through the metal so the knobs are not only decorative but they also help hold the slats in place. You can find the knobs here. Since these knobs ship from overseas, allow a few weeks for delivery.
For the top, I used the 4 inch wide oak strips. Not wanting to use the builders adhesive again, a better choice was contact cement…it has low moisture, dries almost immediately and most importantly, it didn’t warp my boards. If you still want to use builders adhesive opt for the more expensive choices. The cheaper ones are now water based and soak into the wood. Look for one that does not have water clean up.
A sheet of rusty metal was cut to fit inside the oak strips on the top. This was piece of the same rusty metal I previously used on my railroad spike wine rack.
The metal was part of of my birthday scavenging trip from last year. To see what else we picked up, check out my haunted mirror.
More contact cement attached the metal to the file cabinet.
While the rust had a really cool texture, it would be absolutely terrible for dusting.
Since I had some resin leftover from a railroad tie lamp from a couple of months ago, I mixed a cup and smoothed it over my rust.
The metal was showing signs of warping, to make sure that it stayed put, both the metal and the oak strips were screwed into the corners to the top of the file cabinet.
The oak was finished with two coats of varnish.
Finished up the file cabinet by painting all the exposed metal with black chalk paint followed by clear wax. The card holders with pulls in the center of the cabinet can be found here.
A lot has happened since the first file cabinet request. The happy couple no longer live in their house with the super small office. They decided to sell their house and buy a fixer upper. Their house sold the first weekend it was put up for sale. A week later they put in an offer on a 50’s era home and this past weekend we got to take down some walls. I’m so excited, I’ll be sure to share some pictures.
Need another file cabinet transformation? Check out my mismatched file cabinets. These 2 now form the base of my youngest son’s desk.
Have a great week.
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This is beautiful. If you were someone who lived in a small space and didn’t have a designated office space this could sit in any room of the house now. It looks like a beautiful piece of furniture and not a metal file cabinet. Love it.
it’s gorgeous, can’t wait to have a real room to put it in!
This looks absolutely awesome!
Great transformation. I love the original mismatched file cabinets too. I have those, could you come and redo them for me? Ha
Pat
Awesome transformation! Now I’m in the lookout for a metal cabinet. 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration!
Spectacular! Gorgeous job!
Found you through BNOTP.
Now this is cool! Great idea!
So smart, I just love how you have totally changed the look of these file cabinets. I’m inspired.
Brilliant idea! It looks absolutely authentic and I love how you used metal on the top! It would look amazing if you added large metal castors to it… of course it is jaw dropping now the way it is … just adding my 2 cents 😉 Some day I just may get this creative! Well done! I hope you have a great rest of your week! If you feel like sharing this at Making Broken beautiful this week , it starts tomorrow morning and I would love to host this your talents!
Smiles!
Terry
The Curator’s Collection & Making Broken Beautiful
Wow, what a great transformation, it looks like a very old piece of furniture now, one of those artist cabinets where they keep their drawings. Great job!
I love, love, love this Joan. You turned an ordinary file cabinet into one which charm and character. I can only sit here and marvel at your amazing talent. Pinning and sharing. Thank you for joining us at Sweet Inspiration.
What a brilliant and gorgeous makeover! You did a beautiful job!
Joan,
Wow! I love the new look of the old file cabinet. Who knew the boards would warp? Yikes!
great save!
gail
It could be the liquid nails I always use. Used to be when I got it on my hands I couldn’t wash it off and it would be with me the rest of the day. The new liquid nails washes off and I don’t think it’s nearly as strong. I never would have thought the moisture in it would affect my boards though.
I love this so much, it’s so different and so so pretty! Wow! Thank you so much for sharing at Sweet Inspiration #6! Happy Saturday!
What an amazing transformation Joan! The before and after is just unreal! Thanks for sharing at Friday’s Furniture Fix!
Hello Joan! Can’t help but share this brilliant idea at Making Broken Beautiful this week! So happy you shared this inspiration! Thank you!
I hope you have a great week!
Smiles!
Terry
The Curator’s Collection & Making Broken Beautiful Thursday
[…] Old File Cabinet Upcycle via Scavenger Chic […]
[…] Old File Cabinet Upcycle via Scavenger Chic […]
Wow! Love this– would not have thought to make the drawers look like a bunch of skinny drawers, but I love the look. Thanks for sharing!
Amazing transformation! I especially like the metal top covered with resin. Your family must be thrilled. Take care, Cynthia
Wow Joan! This is SO awesome! Featuring this evening on The Painted Drawer Link Party and thanks so much for linking up! Just amazing 🙂
I just saw this amazing transformation from The Painted Drawer’s weekly party! It’s absolutely brilliant and I hope you don’t mind that I shared it on my Facebook page. Well done! 🙂 ~ Robin
Of course I don’t mind, thank you so much.
What an amazing makeover!
Thanks for sharing with SYC.
[…] File Cabinet Makeover { from Scavenger Chic } […]
You are so creative! I would never think to do something like that with that old filing cabinet. Love how it turned out! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
hugs,
Jann
What a cool makeover Joan. I want one! … Featured at Be Inspired this morning. Thanks so much for sharing!
For metal you can sand it lightly just like wood and then put a high gloss clear coat on it and seals it so rust does not come off and it can be wiped down. Love what you did. When I first looked at the project it looked like you had replace the big drawers with small ones. I then read what you did and it looks great.
Benita
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That’s just hilarious to me that you son thought they didn’t need one. Who can live without some kin of filing drawers. You did an amazing job totally transforming that old ugly thing into a work of art! I bet your daughter in law loves your skills. Pinning.
Happy Thoughts of Home and thank you so much for joining us. 🙂
Oh Joan… only you would encourage me to keep my ugly file cabinets. I know I need them but they are HIDING. Now I want to play with them… in the open! haha
Featured this beauty this weekend on Party Junk. Thanks for linking up!
[…] Old File Cabinet Upcycle via Scavenger Chic […]
[…] my. This may be a fav. This filing cabinet makeover is ah-mazing! From ‘Scavenger Chic‘, she used chalk paint, oak boards and a little bit of time to turn this into a pretty piece […]
Often with the file cabinets I’ve been looking for to copy this great project, there is a “push button” to open and close the cabinet. I can’t figure out how to modify that one issue to do your project but at the same time open and close the door. Any ideas?
Your cabinet looks beautiful. I hope to mirror a metal file cabinet. I will spray paint the frame silver, I think. Then I will use adhesive mirror strips for the 3 visible sides. Any advice? Should I sand the metal before putting on the mirror strips?
Thank you in advance.
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