Thursday, June 27, 2013

DIY: Up-cycled Filing Cabinet


I found this busted up beauty last weekend at a yard sale,
and I knew she was going to be the perfect addition to my new office.
All she needed was a fork lift to get her home, 
because she ways a metric shit ton,
some TLC and elbow grease.


See that $10 price tag?
I talked them down to $5 and convinced them to load it into 
my car for me.


The frist step to bringing this cabinet back to life was to remove all of the hardware.
I knew that it was missing pieces and that I was going to have to 
replace all of the handles.


Once every thing was taken apart,
I got super sweaty and dirty giving this giant hunk of 
metal a really good sanding.
Using a medium to coarse grit paper. 
I used circular motions
(think Karate Kid)
and really concentrated my attention
to the areas that were rusty.

After sanding, I used a wet rag to remove all of the dust.
It took a few good wipe downs to really make sure that I got it all,
and the last cleaning I used mineral spirits and a dry rag.


Once all the surfaces were thuroughly cleaned,
I used a spray paint primer to cover the entire cabinet.


I also salvaged the label holders off the front of the drawers and sprayed them flat black.


The original cabinet had spindles that ran inside each drawer, but one was missing.
I opted to just fill the hole with a screw, hex nut, and acorn nut for decorative purposes. 


Lastly I sprayed the cabinet this beautiful and cheery
Marigold color and started calling it my happy cabinet.
After the paint had a full 24 hours to dry,
I put on all the hardware and labels.
This was such an easy project that really brought a dead piece of furniture 
right back to life, and provided so much storage and sunshine in my office.


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