Refurbishing a Filing Cabinet

The location of my home office has been in limbo. For years it was in the basement, but that isn't the most convenient location for me. I need to be able to see/hear/know what my kids are up to, especially during the summer months when they are outside playing in the backyard. That's hard to do from the basement.

So I converted a corner of our dining room into my own corner office. I'm not pleased that I've taken over my dining room (and neither is my husband), but it's definitely more convenient for me than the basement. It will do for now.

I'm using a small white desk that we didn't need any longer at our business office, but I also needed a filing cabinet for some additional storage. While I love the white Bedford Lateral File cabinet at Pottery Barn, I just don't have $499 to spend. We did have an unused cabinet at our business, but it wasn't white. Never fear, with a little spray paint, my husband took care of that for me.

Before:

And 2 cans of spray paint later:

We are super pleased with the results. The cabinet is in great condition and the drawers work very well. My husband used Rust-oleum Universal in Gloss White. He used 2 (12 oz) spray bottles, but there was a slight breeze that day, so we think some was wasted--thus the 2 bottles. The total cost was $12--beats the $499 at Pottery Barn.

I'm in the process of cleaning out my old filing cabinet and my plan is to downsize my paper files to just the top drawer of the new cabinet. I'll use the bottom for storage.

My corner office...

...with a view to my back yard:

Have you refurbished a piece of furniture lately with spray paint? How did it turn out? Let us know in the comments.

This post is linked to Thrifty Thursday.

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