File cabinets never occupied a minute of thought until I got married. But then came kids, and a house, — and PAPER!— and it became an essential. When we brought the first one home I felt like I had just thrown a bit of my aesthetic sensibility out the window, and ever since I've been seeking out options for subduing these visual space-hoggers.
Thankfully, there seem to be a lot of awesome ideas for either making these puppies blend in or making them into focal points— in the good way....
• Mari Eriksson, Swedish lifestyle photographer and blogger, has one of my favorite — and easiest!&mdash solutions: industrial style incorporation. I really never thought a plain jane metal file cabinet had the potential to look good in someone's home until I spotted Mari's beautiful craft room, decked out in industrial schoolhouse style and bright floors and walls. It looks so....purposeful! Check out the rest of Mari's gorgeous home here.
• 2., 3. A simple paint job can do wonders for turning ho-hum cabinets into part of the decor. I've used rustoleum's spray paint to great effect. Choose a color that matches of provides a nice contrast with the rest of your decor. In picture 2, vintage style hardware was also purchased on ebay to update the look of the cabinets, and placing a few side by side gives them a more establishes, less office-y look. They also make a great base for a desktop (picture 3).
• 4. design*sponge featured one of my favorite before and afters of all times: Casey's wallpaper sample face lift. Using the remnant, mod-podge, and new modern pulls, Casey completely updated the look of this office staple by papering the cabinet fronts. Check out the full tutorial here.
• 5. Design*Sponge reader Abha took the concept a step further, papering the entire cabinet using gift wrap! Check out her post here.
• 6. Or you could apply the same concept using fabric, like Christi Weber of Waste Not Work Shop.
• 7.OR, you could employ Mary McDonald's famously (infamously?) clever trick of photo-copying wallpaper and gluing it on a mundane cabinet.
What tricks have you found for fitting these bulky beasts into your decor?
PS- I have yet to visit a Goodwill or thrift store that didn't have a file cabinet for pennies, so before you go spend a ton on a new one, it's worth it to look for a secondhand option first.
(Images: 1: Mari Eriksson for angel at my table, 2: Better Homes and Gardens, 3: Country Living, 4: Casey for Design*Sponge, 5: Abha for Design*Sponge, 6: Christi Weber, 7: Domino)
Ashley & Kyle's Personality Packed Home 
Aftermarket Resources for Customizing IKEA Furniture 
Like us on Facebook
RSS Feed (Atom)
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elfa Decor Shelving
12 Recipes to Know By Heart
How To Make Cake Pops
Comments (16)
A good way to hide 'em is to have two 2 drawer file cabs of same style and put a desktop on them. They support the desk, most of us have no need for more than 4 drawers and the paperwork is always handy to your desktop.
Cheers!
PS: I have wooden file cabinets and a glass desk top. Looks more like contemporary furniture than ugly file cabs.
"RV White" Rustoleum, which has some undertones of green and cream, seems to be this household's favorite for a neutral, fresh look in the unavoidable, utilitarian file cabinet.
I may be switching to file boxes instead...still debating about it.
I like having them next to bookshelves of the same height. They flow really well, and blend in flawlessly. They also help aesthetically to break up the constant shelves of books.
In my parent's home office renovation a few years ago, they made them blend in completely with the other cabinetry in the room.
Step the heights. They look less like monoliths and more like furniture or modern sculpture.
I love #3, a mini home office room? I think it's lovely!
How much paper do you really need to save? I scan what I can, and use a small file cabinet for the rest. It fits in with the bookshelves.
Buying a file cabinet was like a rite of passage in my family. You knew you were an "adult" when you had stuff you had to file.
We're going to have this problem when we renovate as we currently have filing cabinets upstairs but of course the GF cannot manage to file anything while they are out of sight so we are going to have to move them downstairs in the new layout and somehow hide them in the new snug :-(
Long ago, in a very small space where everything had to do double duty, I bought a round, particle-board tabletop at a craft store, foam-taped it to the top of an old file cabinet, and put a nice table skirt and runner on top. It was my bedside table and "deep" file storage; current files were in a desk file drawer.
But now I prefer to let things be what they are. Love Mari's place.
THANK YOU, Leah! This post could not have been better timed. I was planning to buy filing cabinets this weekend and was struggling with the aesthetics of that decision.
FantasticMrFaux - we have one currently, but with a home business, I'll probably have to get another. I cannot get behind electronic filing for everything...too much screen time sucks the life out of me.
Perfect Timing! We just bought our first file cabinet this past weekend. It was a local art supply store so they only had one two drawer in putty that I painted white. I'm thinking of papering the front, or spicing it up a little, but have not found the right paper.
I found a great 2-drawer file cabinet for 5 dollars at a thrift here in Chicago. I'm actually using it as a nightstand and it looks pretty good as-is. It works great because I can put nightstandy things in the top drawer, and blankets in the bottom drawer.
I have endless amount of files. I am super organized but there are still tons and tons of files since I have my own business, my husband has his, and then we have all our personal files. I have tried all kinds of hiding of the cabinets over the years, and now I just have them in my home office in beautiful but large knoll cabinets. But my favorite hide was putting a two drawer lateral in a pax wardrobe from IKEA (you just have to build a bottom to go under the pax that provides support. Think 2x4's in a repeating v pattern. I then hung my husbands clothes above the file cabinet and voila, when closed no one knew the difference.