Lately I have been reading about ways to decorate old file cabinets. Since I just happened to have an old file cabinet in the garage (does that surprise you?) I decided to try my hand at another Pinterest project.

Here are some of the ideas I thought were cute. But first I had to get the file cabinet into the house. And yes, I was “big girl”; I moved it all by myself! Amazing how good doing stuff like that by yourself makes you feel. (And if you don’t hurt yourself in the process, you feel even better!)

 Although I have to say it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

I decided where to put it. Then, armed with my tools, it was time to take off the handles and other hardware. Unbeknownst to me, this was not going to be an easy task, either!

It turns out there are screws on the inside of the drawers, and they aren’t normal ones. You can’t get them off with a regular screwdriver. (I actually had to Google it just to get this far, as the screws themselves are hidden behind another metal piece that you have to take off first.)  It worked okay on the first two drawers, but for the last two, I never could get the handles off. And it took forever to get the label holders off. You can see how scratched up they got before I was finally able to yank them off with my needle nose pliers. This wasn’t the smartest idea, since I got pinched multiple times and ended up with a blood blister on my thumb!

Then it was time to start “Mod Podging” the fabric to the drawers. I had yards of this fabric in the sewing room, and I didn’t remember when I had gotten it or what I was going to use it for. I decided to do the stripes alternating between horizontal and vertical, because I knew if I put them all the same way I wasn’t going to be able to match the stripes perfectly, and it might look funny.

Because I couldn’t get the handles off the bottom two drawers, I had to work around them. It turned out okay, after I got it glued down and put a small strip of fabric over the place where I had to cut the fabric.

Have I mentioned that I make a huge mess with my projects? And you will notice the space by the door hinges…

Somebody wanted to play. Or help.

Or supervise.

Or just chill.

Once I got the fabric on the drawers I painted the metal edges with craft paint.

Then I remembered seeing where you can take Dollar Store picture frames and paint them, then put them on your cabinet fronts so it looks like molding. Of course I had to try it.

It could be that with the striped fabric, the frames are a bit much, and I think they would have been easier to see on a solid color, but here’s how it turned out.

 

Now, in case you are wondering why I would go to all the trouble to bring a file cabinet in from the garage and redecorate it…I do have a good reason. I need extra storage for what has over the years has become lovingly known as “The Puppet Stuff”.

By “Puppet Stuff” I mean backdrops, poles for the puppet stages, the puppets themselves, costumes, props, and anything else someone would need to put on skits and puppet shows for Sunday School kids over the course of many years. (That’s another post in itself; stay tuned!) And we’re only talking about the items that are stored at my house. That’s not to mention how much is stored in someone else’s garage. Who shall remain nameless. At least for now.

Have YOU ever wondered where the stick horses and stuffed corn on the cobs go when the Sunday School lesson is over? (Yes, I know, it’s probably “corns on the cob” …like “mothers-in-law” …but, maybe not. That’s what you get for reading a blog written by a known language person! I’ll look it up later. Maybe.)