on up-cycling a file cabinet!

So I saw the original post on Pinterest and decided that with the whole room redo I NEEDED to do this project! It would be the perfect storage piece considering it's got a lot of space and the drawers are very deep. I'll probably use it for crafts, which shouldn't be surprising since I don't have much space to keep all my goodies, and if not that then for all of my seasonal clothing or clothes that don't get much use.

So I managed to inherit a filing cabinet, but unlike the original post, mine only had four drawers.

The first thing I had to do was take out the hardware on the front. Austin came over and used a socket wrench to unscrew the handles and the face plates just popped out pretty easy. The only difficult piece was the slider. It's installed pretty complicated in the drawer itself so we just left it... we didn't want to break anything! I spray painted all the hardware green.

And then there's spray painting the whole kitten caboodle, including the sliders. I've come to learn through this project that I'm garbage at using spray paint. My apologies for the sort of spolotchie look my cabinet has. Also, sorry about the night-time grainy photos. Also, I used two whole cans of spray paint from Home Depot... make sure you buy enough! 

I let it all dry over night! And in the morning I started covering the drawers with fabric. I started with measuring the drawers and cutting out the fabric. I gave each piece an extra two or three inches on each side so that when I covered the drawers I would have enough to hang over the edges and glue down! Then after I pulled the top and bottoms tight enough I cut a hole where the slider is so I could pop it out. Then, I glued both sides and pulled it tight to it was flush against the metal, and then painted on a layer of modge podge! All I used was tacky glue and modge podge and everything worked out perfectly for me (aside from the slider complication) and I was pleased at how relatively easy it all was!

When I was finished I popped everything back into and place and admired the handy work!

I spent about ~$9.00 on the spray paint and $6.29 per yard (I had two) on the fabric! And since the file cabinet was a freebie I only spent around $22.00 on the whole project. I definitely think my money was well spent!

So I saw the original post on Pinterest and decided that with the whole room redo I NEEDED to do this project! It would be the perfect storage piece considering it's got a lot of space and the drawers are very deep. I'll probably use it for crafts, which shouldn't be surprising since I don't have much space to keep all my goodies, and if not that then for all of my seasonal clothing or clothes that don't get much use.

So I managed to inherit a filing cabinet, but unlike the original post, mine only had four drawers.

The first thing I had to do was take out the hardware on the front. Austin came over and used a socket wrench to unscrew the handles and the face plates just popped out pretty easy. The only difficult piece was the slider. It's installed pretty complicated in the drawer itself so we just left it... we didn't want to break anything! I spray painted all the hardware green.

And then there's spray painting the whole kitten caboodle, including the sliders. I've come to learn through this project that I'm garbage at using spray paint. My apologies for the sort of spolotchie look my cabinet has. Also, sorry about the night-time grainy photos. Also, I used two whole cans of spray paint from Home Depot... make sure you buy enough! 

I let it all dry over night! And in the morning I started covering the drawers with fabric. I started with measuring the drawers and cutting out the fabric. I gave each piece an extra two or three inches on each side so that when I covered the drawers I would have enough to hang over the edges and glue down! Then after I pulled the top and bottoms tight enough I cut a hole where the slider is so I could pop it out. Then, I glued both sides and pulled it tight to it was flush against the metal, and then painted on a layer of modge podge! All I used was tacky glue and modge podge and everything worked out perfectly for me (aside from the slider complication) and I was pleased at how relatively easy it all was!

When I was finished I popped everything back into and place and admired the handy work!

I spent about ~$9.00 on the spray paint and $6.29 per yard (I had two) on the fabric! And since the file cabinet was a freebie I only spent around $22.00 on the whole project. I definitely think my money was well spent!