0
4 In Before & Afters

Filing Cabinet Makeover

Happy Saturday friends! Congrats on surviving the busy first week of September!!
This first week of September has been crazy town for us! Our little girl started school for the first time and I have devoured all of my fingernails in the process. 
My home salon business is booming, and I couldn’t be happier or more busy if I tried.
I cant complain one bit! I love being busy in every aspect of our lives.
The days are flying by with a schedule of dropping off and picking up kids from school, park dates with my baby, working on the best clients ever and squeezing in some little projects in between nap time while simultaneously funneling coffee.
So though we are so busy over here, organization has never been my strong suit. 
I like a tidy house but I am not opposed to allocating certain drawers rooms for the messes that accumulate on counter tops and desk tops. In an attempt to stay on top of all of the messes that come with back to school, I decided to figure out a way to divide and conquer the teetering piles of papers and bills.
 
Ever since we moved into our home two years ago, I left our ugly filing cabinet in the garage and instead thought up brainy ways to organize without a system. I bought cute little baskets for bills and such, and I even bought little trays for odds and ends. 
Well, that wasn’t working very well, when – to this day- I just keep dumping the basket of school work, papers and receipts into a bigger basket and pray hard that it disappears.
But, that has not worked so well.

Here is where I should apologize, in writing, to my husband, my sons grade one school teacher and the credit card company for simply “forgetting” and “misplacing” — a lot.

 Well, with this new year I decided I would tackle the paper work and
I would finally incorporate a system to help with our families day to day
life.

I simply took our old and ugly 90’s-office-looking filing cabinet from its home in the garage and covered the sides and inside with tape and newspaper. I washed it down, dried it well, and went wild on our back deck with a bottle of semigloss black Sprint. I gave it a couple of coats and let it dry completely. 
Then, I brainstormed again.
 Though its new paint job looked amazing, it needed something more.
I decided that the filing cabinet definitely needed some glamming up!

So, I fished out two remaining glass door knobs from our RAST HACK Bedside Table project and attached them to the filing cabinet drawers by drilling two holes centered in the middle of the drawers.

 I then introduced it to its new home beside our little desk area that is actually right beside our living room. 
You can see our whole living room reveal HERE.
 
Our two newly covered chairs separate the two spaces but make it easy to gain more seating around the desk for instant homework help.

This little forgotten desk has now become the most used space in our home. 
  

With the addition of some art supplies, simply placed in milk glass, the kids are always drawn to this spot.

No pun intended. ๐Ÿ˜‰
 

With a window view, my little ones can be found drawing pictures and giving themselves Crayola tattoos.
With the comfiest chair in our house right in front of this desk area, I even find myself sitting there, reflecting and trying to organize papers as they come into our house.
Hopefully, as the kids and I create more with paper and markers we will also make less creative messes all over the house.
Who am I kidding…
Everyone knows that with creativity comes disorganization! 
This little filing cabinet makeover will hopefully help to keep our paper problem under control from now on.
I love a good before and after. ๐Ÿ™‚
So far we are testing this filing cabinet makeover by making lots of pictures, practicing writing letters together and demanding to Mommy that we keep them “forever”. ๐Ÿ˜‰
That is my favourite kind of filing.
๐Ÿ™‚

You Might Also Like

  • Tanya Runkle
    September 7, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    Great before and after Bethany!!

    xo, Tanya

  • bethanygier
    September 8, 2013 at 12:40 pm

    Thanks Tanya! Hope your September is going well!

  • Kelly Rinzema
    September 10, 2013 at 1:10 am

    Wow looks awesome! And that little ruffle dress is killing me – adorbs!

  • bethanygier
    September 21, 2013 at 1:09 am

    Thanks Kelly! She is a little stylish girl and would wear a dress every day if she could. And glitter. ANYTHING with glitter. ๐Ÿ˜‰