What Went Right with My File Cabinet Makeover Gone Wrong

I love organization even though I can be quite messy – just another irony in my oft paradoxical life.  As such, I’ve been wanting a file cabinet for quite some time, because I’m a bit of a document hoarder as well. Since this thing would be going in my room, I didn’t want an old boring, basic file cabinet staring at me – it would definitely be getting a makeover.

Also for quite some time, I’ve been putting purchasing one on the back burner. But this year, I finally got one!

I’m somewhat of a perfectionist, not to mention a bargain hunter – all the aforementioned attributes creating a recipe for the unnecessary yet inevitable stress that ensued in my file cabinet pursuit.

The Hunt

With the quarantine upon us, I figured it was the perfect time to get started. So I started checking file cabinets out online, only to discover that they are ridiculously expensive. I actually came across a rather cute one on Target’s website for only $50 – practically a steal compared to the $200-plus they were going for at other places. I was ready to purchase it too, that is until I read the reviews. People were saying the thing was cheap as fuck, metal denting and falling apart mere days after they brought it home.

Umm, I can’t have none of that.

That’s when I decided to turn to a trusted old friend. You may know him — Craigslist. It’s been a while, but we’ve had good times. When I moved from Atlanta to New York some years ago, I sold practically everything I had on Craigslist, from my car, to my couch, hell even my blender. More recently, well, about six years ago, I bought a wooden tanker desk on there, so I figured I’d check him out again.  

What do you know, I was in unwanted-file-cabinet heaven.

Primarily, I was looking for the 2-drawer variety. I don’t know what turned me on to the 4-drawer ones, but that’s what I ended up with. I wanted to get the cheapest file cabinet possible or even better, free, in order to mitigate my overall costs. But I guess the cheap and free ones were going fast, because nobody responded to me. Nobody except the guy who had a $50 filing cabinet.

No Mergers Just Acquisitions

Sure I was ready to spend $50 on the brand-spankin’ new filing cabinet from Target, but on Craigslist that seemed like a bit much. Still, I drove the half hour or so down to his damn near 2 million dollar house (yes, I looked it up – that may sound like a lot ‘cause it is a lot, but this is California, oh and I guess me looking up the value of the house was a lot too, anyhoo) determined to get him down to $30, else I walk away.

Like in the pictures the seller provided on Craigslist showed, the filing cabinet was pretty much in pristine shape. Save for a scratch on the side, and drawers that kinda caved in a bit, it looked great. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I circled it like a shark does its prey, calling out any imperfections I could as a reason to get the price down. But this guy, a retired engineer I learned through small talk, was better at this negotiating thing than I was. I drove out of there with a 4-drawer file cabinet sticking out of the back of my VW Beetle, and $45 less cash in my pocketbook.

Upcycle Uphill Battle

Now it was time to spruce it up. I didn’t take pictures of the before because I didn’t think I would write about it. But it looked like any other standard beige office filing cabinet you’ve seen.

I’m not a DIY-er so this was quite the intimidating undertaking, even as all the YouTubers and bloggers I researched raved about how easy it was.

Luckily mine was in good shape which eliminated some of the initial work. The guy I bought it from kept it pretty clean too, but I still gave it a little once over with my Method all-purpose cleaner. Figuring out how to remove the hardware proved to be one of the hardest parts. Eventually, I was able to remove the handles and the insertion plates (or whatever those things are called), but that little button you push when opening the drawers totally stumped me. After fiddling with it for what seemed like forever, I finally came up with the bright idea to spray paint those knobs first, let them dry and cover them with painters’ tape before painting the rest of it. And what do you know, it worked!

Besides that little trickery, the rest was just putting in some good old-fashioned elbow grease.   

What to Know Before You Drop that Dough

If you’re in the market for a file cabinet upcycle or makeover, here are three things to consider:

Don’t use spray paint

Especially if you’re making over a 4-drawer file cabinet. Not only will you end up using more cans than you’ll realize (I used 4), your hand and wrist will hurt after each application. And to top it off, it’s really hard to get even coverage with a spray can given the large surface. I actually wouldn’t even recommend it for a 2-drawer filing cabinet, but definitely not a 4-drawer one.  Go with a sprayer or a roller if you can.

Applying clear coat ain’t easy

 While it may look like that top coat is going on nicely, if you aren’t extra precise and careful, when it dries, it comes back to haunt you, highlighting every streak that surfaced during the application. What’s more it’s insidious, looking fine in some lighting and sneaking up on you in another.  At first I thought the streaks were subtle, hardly visible. That is until I turned the lights on at night and whoop, there they were.

Focus on the bigger picture

Once I got the file cabinet into my room – which was a feat in itself since I live in an upstairs apartment and I did all this work in my garage on the ground floor – and put the drawers back in, I realized I didn’t fully cover all the beige.

Also, I wasn’t so sure that I liked the gold hardware, and wanted to change it to copper. The orange hue – which I painstakingly searched the internet for, trying to get just the right shade – began to look more  like that Brady-Bunch-kitchen orange with yellow undertones, rather than the fiery rust orange with red undertones  I was going for.

Needless to say, the perfectionist in me was furious with these results.  Immediately, my mind went into correction mode – like what can I do to make this better?

Then I had to take a step back and put things into perspective: I can still store all my shit in this filing cabinet, and no matter how much I think it doesn’t look like what I was going for — it still looks a hell of a lot better than what I started with.

More importantly, did I really want to expend the time and energy it would take to try and get it to look the way I wanted it? Not to mention the money? Would it be worth it?

I had to do a cost-benefit analysis of sorts and realized that sometimes in righting your past wrongs you end up wronging your present and future rights.

 ‘Cause right now I have much bigger fish to fry.

Let these imperfections be my reminder that I tried.

Perhaps I can revisit it some other time.

But for now, I’m movin’ on.

Overall Costs

ITEM	COST
File Cabinet	$45
Orange paint Gold paint	$25, $7 each (3 cans) $4 (1 can) $7
Painter’s tape	$1
Foam brush	$2 for several
Top Coat	$17 for a quart
Sandpaper	$10, for two packages of different grits
Total	$107

Here and here are a couple of the blogs that I got my inspiration and directions on what to do.