My husband inspired this dumpster diving diy project to turn a filing cabinet into a work surface for our classroom. The funny thing is, he is the last person you would ever expect to be a dumpster diver. But you would not believe how many times he has come home with dumpster treasures! It makes me laugh every time, because it just seems so outside of his personality.

I think his dumpster diving skills may be evidence of my influence over him. And when it comes right down to it,

Who Doesn’t Love Free Stuff??

So I told my man that we needed to keep our eyes open for a sweet deal on a filing cabinet for our classroom. But not just any old filing cabinet. I wanted it to be one of those filing cabinets that looked more like a piece of furniture. I specifically wanted the long, wide drawers instead of the tall, narrow stacked drawers. I checked on Craigslist and all the Facebook pages of all the thrift stores that I frequent, with no luck.

Free Gifts from the Dumpster!

Then one day, just like he was filling an online order, my husband brought home a filing cabinet. He proudly told me he pulled it from the dumpster! Haha! It wasn’t made of wood like a piece of furniture, but for our purposes, it was perfect! I thought that we could easily make it look more like a piece of furniture by painting it. I also knew that we had some leftover butcher block from our coffee station project in the kitchen that would top it off nicely, and give it more surface area.

Color Inspiration!

The last bit of inspiration came to me at Lowe’s. I was browsing through the colors in the spray paint section and I found a metallic royal blue that looked like car paint. This was perfect! We have two sons and I actually love to decorate for boys. Now I had all the elements I needed for my DIY project!

We have had some beautifully sunny days lately, and that always gets me in the mood to take on a project like this! Here is what I came up with! Hope this inspires you to check out the dumpster for your very own dumpster diving DIY projects!

My Dumpster Diving DIY Filing Cabinet Project:

First, I had to cut the butcher block to size. I really, really wanted to do this project on my own. My husband is so good to me, and he does so much for me. I wanted to know that I could do this for myself though. He did give me some advice, but I made this cut myself, and I was quite proud!

He also offered to get his router out to make rounded edges, but I told him, thank you, no. I’m doing this myself! I didn’t feel like I had the skills to use the router, so I used a palm sander to soften the sharp edges instead.

I’m so happy with the finished project! Now I have a table top surface for my school supplies, and a place to put all my hanging files for our curriculum! Actually, I would love to add some feet to it, but that might have to wait. For right now, I love it!