Running a small business means I need to make sure to save everything for taxes.
I am notorious for losing receipts though…so I needed a filing cabinet or storage system to house all my important documents and paperwork. Especially with tax season around the corner, I can’t afford to lose anything! I started scouring Facebook Marketplace for cabinets when I found one for a dollar. Yes, $1.
It wasn’t much to look at – Brown and green, rusty in places, and covered in cobwebs. Perfect for a potential thrift flip! So I agreed to purchase it, and picked it up. See what the filing cabinet originally looked like, below (on the left):
What You’ll Need:
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- Filing Cabinet
- Vacuum
- All Purpose Cleaner/Disinfectant + Microfiber Towel
- Zinsser Primer
- Gold and White Spray Paint
- 320 Grit Sandpaper (for any mistakes that need to be sanded down)
- Painter’s Tape
- Embossing Labeler
C L E A N
The first thing I did was take a vacuum to the entire filing cabinet. I tried my best to get into every nook and cranny and even removed the drawers. Once I was able to get all the loose debris, I use my disinfecting all purpose cleaner and sprayed the exterior and interior for a deeper clean.
P R E P
Once the filing cabinet was cleaned and dry, I sprayed every exterior surface with Zinsser primer to stop any water stains or rust from bleeding through the paint. I have to give the entire cabinet about 2 coats to cover all the rust and stains. I cannot even begin to tell you how magical this primer is. If you don’t believe me, I actually tested a small area without the primer and all these weird stains started peaking through the paint. That’s when I realized how badass this primer is. I’m going to start using it on more of my projects.
P A I N T + T A P E
After the primer dried, I sprayed the drawer handles and labels with the metallic gold spray paint. Once that was dry, I used painter’s tape to protect the handle and label areas. Next, I used the white chalk spray paint to paint the drawers and the filing cabinet. I made sure to paint inside the drawers too because that green was too gross to look at!
O R G A N I Z E
My sister-in-law recently gave me some cute folders for this project, but I found additional organizational folders at Target. They had envelope style folders, perfect for housing receipts, as well as file folders with motivational quotes. They were not cheap though, so I purchased some manila folders too. I used my favorite embossing labeler to create labels for all my folders.
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I am thinking about adding a wooden block top to the cabinet. It would tie in the wood detailing around my home and break up a lot of the white furniture that’s in my studio/loft. What do you think?
What do you think of this thrift flip?
