Painting Furniture – A File Cabinet

When my distributor asked for a guest blogger, my first thought was that I wouldn’t have anything to share.  I LOVE to see posts on the APC Facebook site and my painting pales in comparison.  But I put on my big girl panties and decided to put myself out there.  After all, this paint is too much fun to hold back! Some background, I am VERY new to painting home décor items, let alone painting furniture to sell.  I also am what people call a left-brained (or is it right-brained?) person who lacks original creativity.  Granted, I can honestly say I’ve come a long way, but I’m nowhere near the talented people whose work I’ve seen on Facebook.  Can you say ‘paint envy’? My paint project is yes, a boring wooden file cabinet.  What can I say, it was something I had already.Lori Emry 1

The most difficult issue for me is deciding what color to paint.

So after looking at several pictures (remember…’lacks original creativity’), I settled on painting the base in Lincoln’s Hat.Lori Emry 2

Next, I painted over Lincoln’s Hat just the box section in Home Plate.  I put a couple of coats, not being too careful to cover completely since I was distressing it back to black, it was fine.  Then I wanted to paint the drawers a different color than the rest, so I used Smoke Signal.  At this point, I wanted something that made this more than a ‘boring file cabinet painted black, white and grey’ so I came up with an idea to do a stencil on the front.  (Actually, I saw a picture that I liked…yes, lacks original creativity!)  I didn’t have the stencil that I had envisioned in my mind, so I created my own, clear waxed it, added new drawer pulls and voila!!Lori Emry 3

Either the price was right or someone really needed a file cabinet or they actually liked it, because it sold the day I put it on the floor!  Guess I’ll keep painting, after all, I have two more file cabinets and I may even try something outside of grayscale, well maybe!

Post courtesy of Lori

Comments

  1. Dawn Bauer says

    Hi,
    You did a great job! I have a file cabinet almost just like this that I got at Goodwill for $5 and have been wondering about how to do it. I love the handles and the stencil you made for it! Good job!

  2. I love the fill cabinet, you did a great job. I to am just learning to paint with chalk paint and have the same problem deciding how to paint a piece. I was at a sale yesterday and saw the very same kind of fill cabinets, wish I had seen your blog first I would have bought them, next time I will know.

  3. Raven Quesada says

    Absolutely gorgeous!

  4. I think for file cabinets grayscale is appropriate! Must of what goes in them is in grayscale. Love the cabinet!

  5. Great job Lori! Hope you can have another one for the up coming sale. Your writing was nice too.

  6. Great job on the file cabinet and awesome job on the blog too!

  7. I LOVE it!

  8. Curious how you made your stencil. I would love to stencil more but never can seem to find what I am looking for.

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