Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels inspired to découpage an ugly file cabinet over their lunch break. Well, my boss at the time was out of town and I decided it was time to liven up his office. He loves superheroes, so I sought out Marvel wrapping paper. I prepared all the supplies ahead of time at home, so it would take less time at the office.
I used these materials:
- Wrapping paper
- Matte medium (like Mod Podge)
- Sponge to apply, wipe down, and smooth
Here is the before photo of the very generic beige file cabinet. The reticulated front doors would remain as they are. This meant there was no hardware to remove. To prepare the cabinet, I just gave it a proper cleaning on the outside, including the doors.
Another view of the beige in all its glory.
One last glimpse before the makeover begins.
Away we go. I measured twice and cut once while the paper and cabinet were dry. The top had one large sheet of continuous print with at least an inch on all edge for wrapping. Once the exact paper piece has been cut and position is decided upon, only then was I ready to apply a thin coat of the matte medium to the surface of the cabinet. I worked one section at a time so drying didn’t make me feel pressured to hurry. I started with the back of the cabinet because it gave me a chance to warm up to it in a place that mistakes would go unnoticed. For this reason, I did the top last. But I did measure and cut all the pieces at the same time for efficiency.
It took about a half hour to apply it all then I did another coat of the matte medium to protect the paper from coffee cups. I knew this cabinet would be replaced within the year, or I’d have done a coat of hard-wearing Mod Podge. That is recommended for anything in a high traffic area. This was one person’s office, so I took my chances. You can see that I wrapped around the front edges framing the doors.
The top was fun and vibrant with a great vintage comic book vibe.
You can see the wrapping done from the top.
It’s so cheerful. I was thrilled with the result as was my boss. The cabinet later moved on to the sales team’s office where they got a kick out of having something not beige. I don’t know where it is now, but I enjoyed the process at the time.
I also découpaged a cardboard hat box with Mary Jane labels around Halloween 2001. It was fab. The lib is still at my parents’ house, though the box itself is missing. What have you done with découpage or Mod Podge?