Our File Cabinets Get a Facelift

Jeff and I had planned to create a shared office from what is now our dining room. With the kids gone we don't use it as a dining room anymore except for a couple of holidays each year. We are keeping the dining room table so we can still have those holidays. But we are adding some desks.
Jeff's office moved to a new location and were getting new office furniture so they were selling or giving away items. We took four file cabinets and two desk tops for $30. It took us a while but we finally got around to fixing them up.


They were way too short to be table height so we needed to add legs. Well the distance we needed was 9 1/2". Those legs would be way too long so we decided to add a cubby to the top for some storage and legs at the bottom to split the difference.
This is hard to see because the file cabinet is laying on it's back but Jeff built legs for the bottom and you can see the side of the cubby at the top of the cabinet.
For the cubby he measured the length of the cabinet and cut two pieces, then a smaller piece to go between them at the back.
Here is a little glimpse at the legs before he added them to the bottom. We used "end cuts" of wood from Menards. Each piece was .45 if I remember correctly and we bought about 10 of them.
We added my favorite spray paint color - Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze. It is sort of a really dark brown...almost black and it comes out so nice and some brand new hardware to the drawers.
Here is Jeff's side of the office space complete with the updated file cabinets and the desk top. What do you think? I think they turned out nice. I can't wait to get my side finished. It will be much prettier.


I hope you will visit my blog for other great ideas.
Michelle James
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  • Paula Guy Paula Guy on May 20, 2015
    Love the legs. Great idea!
  • Janice Huston Janice Huston on May 21, 2015
    What a wonderful idea! I love this so much, those legs really dressed up those plain cabinets. And the cubby gives a bit of extra storage. Gonna keep this one on my to do list! Thanx for the inspiration!
    • Michelle James Michelle James on May 21, 2015
      Thanks Janice. I really love the way the legs turned out. Glad you like it too.
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