DIY Oak File Cabinet Makeover

5 Materials
$40
1 Day
Easy

We renovated our home office last year. Prior to the renovation, we had an orangey-oak file cabinet where we stored documents. We wanted to keep the file cabinet in the office, but the orangey oak and gold hardware had to go! So, I did a quick and easy makeover of the file cabinet to make it match the decor of the new office. Here is what it looked like to begin with:

Here is an abbreviated version of the makeover of my file cabinet, for full details and more pictures, visit the link to my blog at the bottom of this post.


First, I removed the drawers from the cabinet, and then removed all hardware.


I then spray painted the gold hardware a glossy black.

While the hardware was drying, I lightly sanded the cabinet and drawer fronts to remove any dirt and grease that may have built up on the wood over the many years we have owned it. Then, I painted the cabinet and the drawer fronts a bright white color (it took a few coats).

Once the cabinet and drawer fronts were completely painted and dry, I added an antiquing gel to the entire cabinet, but making sure to wipe most of it off so it just has a slight antiquing/greying effect.

Once the antiquing gel was to the color I wanted and had dried, I added some sturdy casters to the bottom of the cabinet. Since our office now had laminate flooring, we wanted to make sure we could easily move the file cabinet if needed.

I then reattached the hardware to the drawer fronts, and added the drawers back in. We then rolled our much prettier file cabinet into its location in our newly remodeled office!

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