The File Cabinet

When we moved into our new home there was an old wooden file cabinet in the garage filled with random garage junk.  I knew that it needed to be my new art supply cabinet, but it needed some help first.  We cleaned out all of the drawers, but when we tried to move it we discovered that it was coming apart on the bottom.  Boo!  So I pulled out all of the drawers and used some scrap lumber to strengthen the structure.  I also removed an ugly locking mechanism and filled some holes.

Next, I set to work on the drawers.  They had some sort of folder locks that slid along a rail that had been pushed all of the way back.  While moving these around to clean them up I discovered something quite unexpected wedged between the panels.

Woah... I wonder how long THAT has been in there....

At any rate, after cleaning the whole thing up I took it out to the back porch for a good sanding and painted the whole thing light grey (with some paint that I had picked up at the local reuse center for free).  I decided to do another project with a chevron pattern.  This time I created a template the exact size of each drawer front on some paper.  Using a graphite transfer method I drew the pattern on each drawer front.  Basically, I scribbled on the back of where the lines were with a pencil and then traced over the lines on the front... essentially like using carbon paper.  I hand painted the chevron in with white paint.  Lastly, a little distressing with the sander.

Now it looked great on the outside!  The inside, however, wasn't designed to hold objects so the bottoms of the drawers were not solid.  No big deal!  I cut some foamcore to the exact size of the drawer bottoms and covered the pieces with dollar store contact paper. Viola!  Now it is filled up with art goodies and ready for use!