File cabinets are making a comeback — they're out of the home office and into your living rooms and bedrooms for all sorts of storage purposes. This makeover makes a big statement and feels like it walked right off an architect's blueprint!
Heather, over at Dollar Store Crafts, armed with a little inspiration, set out to transform this old file cabinet that had been floating around her family for years. It was your typical beige-blah-whatever and has since been turned into a wham-bam-blue!
The end result was achieved by using a paint pen to hand draw the white lines on the final piece. It's a little raw, it's a little awesome, and it's doable, even if you claim to not be a crafter or have a steady hand!
• Check out the full tutorial for transforming your own cabinet over at Dollar Store Crafts
Image: Dollar Store Crafts
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Comments (22)
This is wonderful, I am so stealing this.
I love this and I love Heather!!!
i love the blue color, but those white lines look very "hand drawn."
@jess13 if you read the post you'll see that was kind of the point. It is supposed to look like a hand drawn blueprint.
I think it looks great.
Beautiful job; it looks great! Love the color too.
Love the blue, love the white, but it would look 1,000 times better if the white lines were straight. Right now it looks like a 6-year old did it.
No, I love the "hand drawn" lines, it gives it a cool feel. I'm still a big fan of filing cabinets out of the office though unless there's just no other place for it.
I like the way the hand-drawn lines give it a cartoon feeling. It would be boring otherwise.
That color scheme helps turn it into a super cute bedside table!
Very well done!
Obviously it's not everyone's style, but I think the wavering hand-drawn lines make the piece! I love it --- very Flat Stanley/Picture Pages.
I love the cartoon look of it.
When I took mechanical drawing classes, we used straight edges and meticulously practiced lettering so our drawings would be very neat. A correct drawing still got knocked down at least one letter grade if our writing was not near-perfect. If your writing was truly terrible, you used a small lettering template, but most of us did OK by the end of the semester. Plus, the blue prints we made off our vellum drawings were lighter blue background with darker blue lines. I would describe this more as a cartoon style than a blueprint style, but it's still OK. That being said, I bought a cheap filing cabinet like the "before" picture at least 10 years ago and painted it a few shades darker than the "after" shown above. I still like it. Anything is better than the bland office beige.
This makeover made me smile. So so so cute - wish I had thought of it.
it's true, blueprints would have perfectly straight lines. but architects' sketches often have wavering lines....
so it doesn't really matter, cabinet looks awesome, who cares if the reference isn't perfect?
I love the cartoon/architect's sketch effect of the handdrawn lines. It's creative, unexpected and an awesome achievement!
This is making me think again about a blah beige filing cabinet I just saw for $10 at our local resale shop....
I've repainted my file cabinet of match the office color, but I love the drawn line idea. I'm staring at it right now deciding on a pattern to do. Brilliant inspiration! Thanks for sharing!
Love it! And my two cents on the wavy lines - it works on this piece. I could immediately identify what she was going for, from the main page thumbnail. I think that the blue would be too intense for more perfect straight edges - would need to be more of Martha blue then, which removes (for me) a good deal of the charm.
This is brilliant! It's the old "a coat of paint can fix anything," taken to a higher level. The crooked lines are perfection.
This is adorable. I could definitely see this same technique used on a second hand dresser for a kid's bedroom, too!
I LOVE this look! I think the wavy lines make for an interesting look. I have a tiny bedroom and I may use it as I dresser myself!