Petunia the Filing Cabinet

I found this old, rusty filing cabinet at a garage sale.  There were no major dents or anything wrong with it that a little love couldn’t fix so I brought it home for a whopping $2!

After a trip to Home Depot with sand paper, primer and spray paint in hand, I was ready to go!

The first step was to clean out all the gunk. The bottom was covered in dirt and cobwebs. Pretty icky stuff but I had gloves, so no biggie. I wore gloves and a dust mask for the whole project. Sanding paint off metal and paint fumes are bad news.

Then, it was sanding time. I used a hand sander and went at it. Some of the spots were pretty rusty so I made sure to sand down to the metal. Other parts weren’t so bad, so I only sanded enough to rough it up. The inside was in pretty good shape which was nice because it was a pain trying to sand around the drawer supports.

After sanding, I washed it down again to get all the dust and grime off.

Primer Time! I used 3 cans of Rustoleum’s basic grey primer. It seemed like a lot, but it resulted with a nice even surface. Even in primer grey, Petunia was starting to shine.

I took my time painting and took lots of breaks. Especially painting the inside. It was hard to reach the little nooks and crannies and all the paint fumes get trapped making it tricky.

The final and prettiest step: Purple Paint. I used Rustoleum’s glossy purple. It is a pretty true purple, just like the grapes we colored in kindergarten. The color looked great right away. But, it took a little more effort to get the ‘shine’ right. If I did this again, I would probably pick a matte finish to avoid the issue.

But, I think Petunia turned out beautifully and I’m glad to give it a new life in our new office.