Who knew filing cabinets could be this gorgeous! Krista from The Happy Housie used Country Chic Paint and some stencils to spice up her storage space.

Hello! It is Krista from The Happy Housie back again today to share a File Cabinet Transformation using Bliss and Simplicity.

Have you tried the amazingly stunning color that Country Chic calls Bliss? The name truly says it all. Just painting with this color made me feel blissful. Seriously. It is the type of color that makes you feel calm and peaceful, happy, and full of energy all at once. Kind of like looking into the Caribbean Ocean. I'm glad I chose it for our filing cabinet - it will add a little cheer to that mundane job.



We are working on a turning a small closet off the kitchen into a mini home office and needed a filing cabinet to help keep ourselves organized. I hunted high and low for a second hand one but couldn't find one anywhere (apparently they are quite a hot commodity). So eventually I gave in a bought a new one. It started out like this:



Pretty standard. I really wanted to freshen it up - I didn't want a big heavy black box in our cute new little office-closet, so I thought a little Country Chic Paint in Bliss would do the trick. I started out by priming the filing cabinet with this primer since it was such a new, shiny metal...



I did two coats of primer just to cover the heavy dark black a little more thoroughly before using the Bliss.



The paint covered really well but you could still see through it in some areas after one coat.



So I did a second coat and the coverage was perfect.

I had thought about doing two layers of paint and distressing the cabinet but since the lines of it are so straight and boring I didn't think that the distressing would work as well. I decided to go for a stenciled look instead. Once the Bliss was dry I used a Martha Stewart stencil and the end of a foam roller to stencil some flowers over the cabinet in a sweeping shape.



Stenciling instructions:

1. Put a little bit of paint into a flattish container.
2. Use a stencil brush or the end of a foam roller (like I did), dab it lightly in the paint, then remove the excess against the edge of your container. You aren't using much paint at a time.
3. ently dab the end of the roller flat down onto the stencil until you have filled it all in!
4. Be careful not to brush against the part of your stencil that is still wet - with these flowers I initially spaced them out and then went back and filled in the in-between bits.

It was actually a pretty quick and easy job, but you might want to practice with your stencil on a scrap before you tackle the 'real' job.

I started by stenciling the larger flowers and then filled in the gaps with the smaller flowers. I didn't plan the design ahead but knew that I wanted the flowers to sweep over the cabinet in a somewhat random flowing fashion. I was so thrilled with the quick dry time of Country Chic because it meant I didn't have to wait long while doing my stenciling.   Once it was all dry, I went with a clear acrylic sealer to give the cabinet extra durability.



Instead of the standard cheap-o plastic handles that the cabinet comes with I decided to use some twine that I had to create simple loop handles handles.

I think that filing suddenly became a more enjoyable task. What do you think?

Thanks for reading. And remember my housie friends, HOME isn't built in a day. Enjoy the journey.