Turn Old Filing Cabinets Into The Perfect Deep-Drawer Garage Storage Solution

While once a standard sight in many home offices, metal filing cabinets are now a rare find in most homes. Even many commercial offices are moving away from massive paper filing to digital storage methods. While they once held important papers and files, most of these things now exist in the digital realm, leading home and business owners to toss or donate the metal cabinets that once housed them. You will spot these cast-off cabinets aplenty in thrift stores and other secondhand venues like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, usually for just a few bucks each. This makes them perfect for upcycling via one of the many genius ways to repurpose a filing cabinet. One of the best is turning them into clever garage storage to house tools, materials, paint, and other supplies that can often be too bulky for smaller storage solutions.

These cabinets come in a variety of sizes and configurations, meaning they can be adapted into other storage systems to maximize your garage space. Made of metal, they can be a better place to store materials that may damage the interior of wooden drawers, including paint, strippers, and solvents. They also resist scratching damage from sharp edges of saws and other tools. The spacious and deep drawers are perfect for large and ungainly power tools, tall bottles or tubes, and other items that are difficult to store out of sight and dust-free. Look for file cabinets with sturdy ball-bearing drawer slides that can handle the weight of tools and heavy containers of supplies.

Using a metal filing cabinet in the garage or workshop is as simple as filling it with the items you need to store. The deep and spacious drawers work especially well for large power tools, regular tools, cans of spray paint, long caulking tubes, adhesives, cords, paint brushes, rolls of rope or wire, and anything else you want to stow away. Add labels to the fronts of the drawers to find your essentials quickly. Upright file cabinets take up minimal floor space, but you might prefer lateral file cabinets for wider drawers that you don't have to pull out as far. The shorter design allows them to slide under work surfaces if you're short on space. 

There are also many ways to adapt vertical or lateral file cabinets cosmetically and functionally to be the perfect garage storage. Paint or cover the surface of the cabinet in peel-and-stick vinyl to add some color and pattern. Place the cabinet on a sturdy plywood base with added casters to make a mobile storage cart. Or, add plywood to the top of a lateral filing cabinet to create an additional workspace. You can also install smaller metal drawers on added tracks inside of larger ones or place small containers inside to increase storage and organization capabilities. If you remove the drawers entirely, vertical file cabinets can also be turned on their backs to store and organize garden tools and sports equipment.