Tuesday tutorial: Vintage filing cabinet makeover

Hello! I hope you had a lovely, long weekend. We didn't do anything exciting, just worked on a few projects around the house and did a bit of shopping. This little project I'm sharing with you today is for my new studio, and has been on "the list" for quite some time. A while back I found this vintage petite filing cabinet at an estate sale..It was less than $10, and I'm thinking it was closer to $5. Whichever, it was a great deal, and as I'm always looking for places to store my ridiculous amount of vintage paper, I thought this would be great. Only problem? Yep, it was ugly!

I forgot to take a "before" photo, but you can see after we did a little painting, you can see the basic brownish-grey the cabinet originally was. This cabinet is one with 9 narrow drawers, it was used in the gentleman's shop for holding all sorts of tools and bolts. So, it was a little rusty, and quite dirty. 

The first thing we did was clean it up, remove the drawers and spray paint the base of the cabinet a nice creamy white. The drawers just got a little dusting of primer as I knew I was going to cover up the drawers.  Oh, and of course we also removed the drawer pulls. 

We painted the drawer pulls a brighter white than is the rest of the cabinet. 

Then, I just grabbed a bunch of my favorite vintage wallpaper scraps, and pieces that I had purchased over the years in packs. You know, when every little shop online was selling vintage wallpaper packs? :) At first, I used mod podge, but I was too worried the paper was going to bubble, so I just used a sponge brush and a bit of The Ultimate glue to adhere my wallpaper. (The Ultimate glue is really my all time favorite, always turn to glue.--and I hope to have it back in stock in the shop soon!)

Once I adhered the wallpaper and trimmed it to fit the drawers, I simply added the drawer pulls back to the drawer, and lined the drawers with some vintage sheet music. (some of the drawers were a bit rusty, and I didn't want that to touch my treasured vintage papers)

Originally I was going to alternate between just a couple of patterns of the vintage wallpaper, but in the end decided to use all different designs. I think I like how it turned out better. 

And here it is finished. MUCH better, don't you think? Really easy project, and you know, you could do this with any filing cabinet...No need for an ugly filing cabinet to be anywhere in your home. 

A couple of other things I wanted to share before I get back to work. First, if you're reading my blog on a reader, click over and take a look at my blog makeover! GAh! I love it! My daughter finished it up for me last week, and I really love the more colorful, but less cluttered design. Plus if you look up there under my little blog gal that she redrew and designed for me,(!) you can see all of my shop and social media links! I think she did a fabulous job. 

Look at how wonderful my little gal is. I am so happy with how the blog turned out, but I love it so much more that my daughter took the original image of the little girl I've been using since I first opened shop and started my blog and completely redrew and recolored her, making her more modern and fresh. Thanks, sweetie! (I should really do a post on the progression of that image since I first found and started using it)

And lastly, as I was putting together the "let the fun begin" kits last week, I snapped this photo. I love putting kits together, and I love the pretty stacks that often come along with them. (I think there are 2 or 3 of these kits left, if you're interested..)

So, that's it for me, a catch up and tutorial all in one day. :)

Be back soon! Cerri xoxo

Comments

[Cindy (Junque Art)]

EEEEEkkkk...love the new blog look. So cute! And love the file cabinet. That turned out great!!!

[Brandy]

Oh my goodness your new look is so fabulous! Totally you. What a talented daughter you have!

[Mitzi Curi]

Wow, I love that cabinet...I'm a vintage wallpaper fanatic, so it really appeals to me. And I love your blog makeover...it looks lovely!

[Izzonet Easy Ecommerce]

Are you selling this? Thanks for the tutorial! My friends would be really glad to this by us. We can probably make a good living out of this too, haha! ♥

[Jessie Tsui]

Wow! I love what you did with your filing cabinet! It really looks wonderful and I love the wallpaper pattern that you have there! By doing this, you truly show that a simple cabinet can transform into something much more exciting. You really did a fantastic job, girl! ;)

[Jlopez]

Fabulous! You're really artistic. I love how you designed the cabinet... so feminine!