Cedar Chest File Cabinet Ottoman

One of my good friends, Kim, showed me how she transformed an old cedar chest into a file cabinet!  

Brilliant!

We have one file drawer in our house that is filled to the brim - we have files from old taxes, old houses, adoption papers, etc.  So, when redesigning our office into a reading room I decided to use an old chest as the coffee table/ottoman knowing I would use the inside as file storage.

It works perfectly as a place to put your feet in front of the sofa

or set a book or coffee.

I used an outdoor fabric for the top.  That way people (children) can sit on it, put their feet on it, and even spill a coffee on it and it will be OK.

 I love the bold red ikat fabric!  It coordinates well with our rug and sofa, but adds a slightly modern touch to the other more traditional elements in the room.

It was in pretty bad shape when I found it (on Craigslist):

You can see the bottom right and upper left corners were damaged.

After a little sanding and re-staining the new corners just add character to the piece.

I also switched out the hardware.

And, of course I recovered it.  To see how I recovered it check out my previous post: Recovering a Foot Stool.  I used the same method here.

I love how it looks from our front hallway.

When you walk in our front door and look left down the hallway it adds a bit of fun color!