The Maxwell Files

Dad's office used to be in a small out building in back of the house.  He set up shop out there years ago and ran a very successful home-based business until just two months before he passed away.

After we moved into the house, one of the monumental tasks was to sort through everything in the office to see what we needed to keep and what could be tossed.  Eventually we would be turning this space into Kevin's drum room, so we needed to move out all of the furniture.  We were able to deal with most of this last summer - at least the larger pieces (desk, large wooden filing cabinets, etc.), but knew that we still had a lot to work on over the spring.

We narrowed it down to boxes and boxes and boxes of files and old binders, and one small filing cabinet that was in pretty rough shape.  The paperwork in the files and binders we organized and boxed up for our credit union's annual 'Shred Day'.  I was wondering what to do with the small filing cabinet when it dawned on me that we could really use it for our own paperwork, but it just looked terrible.

I then remembered that many years ago, I'd acquired an old filing cabinet - about the same size as this one - from my dad's old business.  It, too, was in pretty rough shape but I was able to bring it back to life simply by covering it with Contact paper.  I covered this particular cabinet about 18 years ago and it still looks great!

Yep, I had another spring break project ahead of me =)

All in all it's a fairly simple process.  The thing I love about it is that the Contact paper is sticky and adheres well to the cabinet.  The think I hate about it is that the Contact paper is sticky and adheres well to the cabinet!  It takes a bit of patience, peeling and unpeeling until you have it just right,  but the end result is so worth it!  For the small investment of $7.00 for the roll of Contact paper, and about two hours of my time, we ended up with a very respectable filing cabinet that I don't mind having out in the open.

See for yourself.

Before:  

And after:  

Kinda cute, right?!

...now I just have to work on getting our paperwork dealt with and placed inside the filing cabinet.  Good thing summer break is right around the corner!