Metal File Cabinet Makeover

Today I have the honor of sharing an amazing metal file cabinet transformation done by Barbara from Chase The Star.  Here is her tutorial for her metal file cabinet makeover.

Witten By Barbara from Chase The Star

I’m all about bringing out of the box ideas to fruition, on the cheap!

My most recent attempt at this came in the form of old run of the mill file cabinet that had been sitting in my hall closet, for um, ever!  At least 6 years, I kid you not.  Worst of all it was empty!  Sadly I stacked stuff on top, but kept nothing in it.  Not practical or smart considering that my son’s video games were in desperate need of a home.

If you’ve visited Chase the Star at any time, you’ll know I’m not one to leave well enough alone, like ever.  A black metal file cabinet would’ve fit in the playroom just fine.  But ‘just fine’ ain’t gonna cut it!

Take a look at what he looked like before:

{Sad and lonely}

I don’t have too much experience working with metals so this was a new endeavor for me.  However, I knew that I wanted blue and I wanted chevron, and that would be easy with a couple of cans of spray paint and a lot of patience!

 Luckily I had all of the materials I needed, just had to pick up a can of Rustoleum Ultra Cover in Lagoon and a skinny vanilla iced latte from Starbucks to get started.

After wiping the cabinet down with a damp cloth, and removing the drawers and the casters, I added a coat of the pretty blue (Lagoon) to the entire cabinet shell (making sure to tape the inside rim).

As that was drying I started the tedious task of taping out the chevron pattern on the drawers.  This was done free-hand which took a little longer, in retrospect; I would’ve printed out a pattern to follow.

After a couple of coats of white spray paint, I peeled off the tape and had an almost perfect chevron print!  ‘Almost’ works for me!

Painted the drawer pulls the same blue by screwing them in to an old (and overly painted on) piece of cardboard so they’d sit still!

Once everything was dry I added the casters and the drawer pulls back on and wound up with this ultra- cool almost retro looking cabinet for the playroom!

{Happy!}

Even after working on about a trillion spray paint projects, it never ceases to amaze me how it can easily transform almost anything!

If you happen to have an old metal cabinet, don’t get rid of it because it doesn’t fit in to your space, take a can of spray paint and make it special!