Painted File Cabinet Garden Planter in Sungold Yellow

Carole
by Carole
I posted here on Hometalk a few weeks back two old filing cabinet makeovers that I did. I cleaned, primed and painted and made them into garden planters. One red and one blue. Well the wall alongside the house where I placed these two had space for another one. So this time I opted for Sungold yellow paint from the Wattyl Killrust range. I bought the 3 drawer file cabinet for ten dollars on ebay. My husband picked it up for me on one of his business trips to Sydney. Then it got a good wash, wipe over with methylated spirits and a light sand. Then a good rinse with the hose. Once dry it was primed with two coats of Killrust Heavy Duty Primer. This stuff dries Khaki green. Then it was on with the paint. I used a paintbrush to apply the paint rather than spray paint. It needs a second coat of paint but it has been too cold to paint lately, so in the meantime I planted it up with some white agapanthus that needed re-potting and top-dressed it with large black smooth river stones. When the weather is warmer I will give the side and front another coat of Sungold yellow as at present you can still see the green primer showing through the paint.
Note: I took the runners out of it and discarded the drawers and also drilled holes in the base for drainage. I had a lot of old plastic garden pots in the garage, so I upturned them and lined the bottom of the cabinet with them to take up some space as the soil did not need to be quite that deep. The plants look a bit floppy at the moment after being transplanted but they should perk up when they settle in.
The strappy leaved agapanthus should recover and be more upright once they have settled in. At present they are looking a little floppy! Red planter has Cordylines and the blue planter has Aloe Vera. All three are sitting up on bricks to aid drainage.
Dirty and rusting on top a little- the before
Don't need the drawers
Rusting a little on the top
Painted in Sungold - needs another coat
I don't know why but I did not take photos of it sitting in the primer. If you see my previous posts though where I did the red one and the blue one you will see the khaki green primer. At present this primer is still visible through the paint, hence it needs another coat before I can truly say it is finished.
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  • Jerri Verity Jerri Verity on Jun 30, 2018

    I want to do this to plant my two Lantana bush/trees but would the bottoms of the cabinets need to be cut out for roots?

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  • Tracey Peate Tracey Peate on Oct 17, 2015
    Did you remove the two braces from inside or have you planted around them ?
  • Carole Carole on Oct 17, 2015
    I removed the drawer runners. In the first two I did I just left them in as they add strength to the planter. If you jiggle them they come out quite easily as they are on some sort of clip that slots into a hole in the cabinet. They add considerable weight to the planter so ensure to put the cabinet where you want it to stay before you add your soil. In the yellow one here I removed them. The two drawer dividers at the front are part of the frame and not removable as far as I could see on this particular one, so I just planted around them. The smaller red one did not have a drawer divider although it was a two drawer cabinet.
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