I got these filing cabinets from Habitat for Humanity ReStore for a couple bucks and wanted to repurpose them to make my desk. I knew I wanted to use card pull label holders because not only do I love the way they look on furniture, I also love being organized! I have so much paperwork it’s easy to quickly become unorganized. Unorganized leads to being unproductive around here and we can’t have that.

The first thing I had to do was remove the existing pulls to create a flat work surface. It was fairly easy, they just popped right out. Here’s what the filing cabinet looked like after one of the handles were removed. I have to remove the handles so that you have a nice, flush surface to apply the wood slats.

I used craft board from Lowe’s and simply cut them to the length I needed. This craft board is 3/8″ thick x 4″tall and x 36″ long.

Using wood glue and clamps, I adhered the wood pieces to the front of the filing cabinet how I wanted them to look.

*EDIT* I would suggest sanding down the filing cabinet first and use Loctite Heavy Duty Epoxy Glue instead of wood glue. This will ensure a more secure grip. Wood glue did not hold up over time. 

I painted my entire filing cabinet after priming it.

Then I measured and marked where I wanted the cabinet pulls to go. I used a drill bit to drill thru only the craft board. The screws that come with the label pulls are short enough that it only needs to go through the craft board.

Then I simply screwed in my label pulls. The label pulls are not going through the entire cabinet. They are only going into the craft board.

I am so happy with how it turned out. It looks vintage, antique, and a play on restoration hardware.

I spray painted just a light dust of gold metallic spray paint on the label pulls so that they would show up better against the dark paint.

It has a personality and imperfections and I truly love it. I ended up doing two of them and that is what the DIY Faux Marble Desktop is sitting on.

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