Disclaimer:  this room is still very much in the “there for function” stage of existence, NOT the “there to look nice” stage.  Judge accordingly!

I had an old, beat up file cabinet that I bought from WalMart when I was in college.  To say that it was an eyesore is an understatement!  It served it’s purpose, but I just could not stand it and wanted it out of my way.  I don’t have a ton of files, but just enough that I couldn’t get rid of the cabinet outright.  Our “desk” in our office is an old door propped on two small dressers that hold our office supplies.  With just a little purging and consolidating, I managed to free up two of the drawers to be converted into one big file drawer.

I had planned to do a proper tutorial for this project, but my wonderful husband knew I wanted it done and surprised me by doing it for me one day while I was gone.  It’s a pretty easy concept, though, so I’ll show you what he did.

Take out the 2 drawers, and remove the bottom of the one that will go on top.  Line them up, and cut four pieces of wood (we used 1 inch square pine) to length to fit in the corners.  When the drawer fronts are lined up, you will probably have a gap in the back.  Use some sturdy pieces of wood as spacers to hold them while you work.

Glue them in using a strong glue (we used Gorilla Wood Glue) and clamp them into place while the glue dries.  If you feel like that is not sturdy enough, throw in a couple of screws to reinforce it.  We didn’t though, and have been using it for months.  It is holding together perfectly and feels very sturdy when we open and close it.

We purchased the metal hanging system from Staples for about $12.  You cut it to size, and it just sits on the bottom of the drawer.

Much better.