A Fling with Filing

Back to the office again! We've talked about shelves, calendars and staplers. So why don't we really let our hair down and talk about filing! Are you excited?

See the wall to the right of our doorway (while it was still under construction)?

Well I had high hopes of having a little row of filing cabinets along the right, butting up against that wall. The problem is that the wall isn't particularly deep. About 450mm, to be exact. Which is a bit too shallow for a normal filing cabinet to slot in there without sticking out into the doorway space.

And then one Sunday afternoon as I was procrastinating and reading our junk mail, I came across this in an Officeworks catalogue!

In case you can't see, it says the depth of the little cabinet is 432mm! Perfect! And the price is pretty good for a brand new little filing cabinet of the perfect size!

So I went to Officeworks first thing on Monday (actually I had to go to two of them because the first one had sold out), to get me a pair of these little babies!

They fit perfectly along that wall, with my new fancy printer/scanner. But unfortunately the black outsides were looking pretty dark and gloomy, so I wasn't satisfied with just leaving it at that. So I got my poor obliging husband measuring...

And this design was born!

We decided to build them a special timber cabinet, to cover up most of the black, and create a nice high flat surface on top for me to use.

Tom paid a trip to the local demolition yard and bought a few VJ boards to act as the vertical supports...

Which he screwed together using pieces of thin board that we'd salvaged from elsewhere in the house.

While he was at the demolition yard, he also bought this old door, made of VJ boards.

Daniel and I sanded it, and removed the hardware.

And then it got a few pieces of the same thin board across it, to hold it together nicely.

And then the assembly process began in earnest!

And then, almost by magic, it was ready! In the interests of getting it installed asap, we just gave it an undercoat, and will paint it properly later.

Into the height of our cabinet we had factored in resting these little plastic sets of drawers on top of each filing cabinet. They're obviously a bit wider than each of the filing cabinets, meaning we have a gap either side of the filing cabinet, but that taller storage will come in handy for a few things.

We're very proud of how snugly the printer fits in.

We decided to raise it up as high as possible, with a makeshift shelf that leaves enough room for paper underneath.

And the best part? We built a hinged lid!

We cut out the section of the door above the printer, and reattached the original door hinges on top.

They'll look a lot better once they are painted white, but I like them, and I think it's nice to keep a reference to the fact that the top of the cabinet used to be a door.

So that's my fancy new filing cabinet cabinet!

It's not the prettiest thing we've ever made, but it's certainly an improvement on the black metal/plastic of the filing cabinets and drawers.

And the hinged lid for the printer works very well.

But also closes nicely to give me a lovely big flat surface if I'm not using the scanner.

A few of the edges probably could use a bit of trim to disguise the join between top and sides, to make it look a bit more finished.

It balances the room out nicely, sitting across from the other cabinet that we painted.

So that brings us yet one more step to getting that room complete! Next, I'll show off whether or not my sewing skills have improved in finally getting my new curtains up!