How to transform a filing cabinet from shabby to chic

Whether you have an office at home or in a corporate park, this is a great and affordable way to spruce up your desk. Recently I was revitalizing a filing cabinet in my office. Check it out.

This is a before picture. The hardware was cheap and I have wanted to get rid of it for a while now. So I decided to give it a face-lift with pattern Contact Paper I had in my craft supplies. This is how I did it.

I first removed the hardware that I didn’t like and removed the lock that I installed earlier.

Then, I cut a strip of Contact Paper I had in the same directions so the pattern would be going in one direction. I made it about 1/2 inch larger on all four(4) sides. The I peeled the backing and attached it to the front of the drawer.  I used a plastic credit card to push out all the air pockets.

I first changed the X-Acto knife blade. Then, I took an X-Acto knife and held the excess up and dragged the X-Acto knife across all four side of the unit. It is really important to change the blade and start with a fresh blade.

This is the finished revitalizing a filing cabinet. What do you think? Cute right? This is the image before the handles were added.

To install the hardware:

I create a template by making a copy of the back of the hardware on my printer. I used the existing holes to make sure it was centered. But the holes couldn’t be reused so, I used a larger Stanley 42-324 24-Inch I-Beam 180 Level and shorter Stanley 43-511 Magnetic Shock Resistant Torpedo Level.  These are examples from Amazon if you need to buy them.

I placed the smaller level horizontal to make sure both holes were level with the other holes and drew a small line where the new holes will be.

Then, I used the larger level vertically across all the cabinet drawer fronts and made a vertical line on top of the other horizontal.

As a result, this created a cross on the spot exactly where I needed to drill.

Then I placed the template up to the cross that I drew and made sure the holes were lined up with these holes from the template.

Then, we screwed the holes. A few crosses were a hair off but they were OK we were able to adjust and you can’t even see it.

Here is the end result.

What do you think? Please share and leave a comment below. I hope this inspires you to customized your own home office space. 

UPDATE On this “How to transform a filing cabinet from shabby to sheek” project: 

I recently updated the front again and it was so easy to do. I found had a self-stick wallpaper I found at the hardware store near me.  So, since I had so much left over from another craft armoire project I did, I figured I would use it for this cabinet as well.  The product I used is by Wall Pops! Pell & Stick Nuwallpaper (This link is from AMAZON, it’s a similar pattern but not exact) The one I used was called Suzani.

I easily removed the other Contact paper one by peeling from the edges and then reattached this one.  I used the same method as above with the Exacto knife. It worked beautifully and I didn’t have to spend a lot of time on it.  Total time to update this project was 1 hour.