How your office is set up and organized may have a lot to do with how well it works. If you don’t have a consistent filing system, your office files and folders are likely to get all mixed up. Once you have your file cabinet, folders, and labels, you have a few options for how to organize your files and folders so that you and your team can find things quickly.
Even though it says “kitchen cabinet,” it’s not always a kitchen cabinet. Whether it’s in a kitchen or not, a scratch-and-dent piece from a home improvement store or a salvage yard, or even a cabinet from a kitchen remodel, has a lot of built-in functionality. If you turn a kitchen cabinet into a filing cabinet, you can hide a lot of storage space because your creation doesn’t have to look like a typical filing cabinet in an office.
If you have a lot of files to store, you should have a system for organizing them instead of just putting them in boxes and putting the boxes in the kitchen cabinet. With a hanging-file drawer kit, a large cabinet space can be turned into a two-tiered file storage system. If the kitchen cabinet has a shelf, take it out and put the kit’s hardware on the side, top, or bottom walls of the cabinet. The racks of the filing system can be pulled out separately, like a file folder-filled hanging drawer. Measure the inside of your cabinet to make sure that the model kit you choose will fit.
Unless you want to keep the cabinet you converted, the kitchen cabinet will probably need some cosmetic changes. If the cabinet was used to prepare food in the past, it needs to be cleaned well with a home degreaser before it can be smoothed out and primed for painting. The cabinet should be painted in a bright color that goes with the rest of the room. Another option is to use painter’s tape to make a creative pattern after putting down a base color and then a second color to make the pattern. If you take off the tape, you’ll be able to see the design. After painting the cabinet one color and letting it dry, apply candle wax to the surface to give it a shabby chic or distressed look. Sand away some of the topcoat, paying special attention to corners, edges, and other high-wear areas.
How do I turn a closet into a place to store files?
With a hanging-file drawer kit, a large cabinet space can be turned into a two-tiered file storage system. If the kitchen cabinet has a shelf, take it out and put the kit’s hardware on the side, top, or bottom walls of the cabinet.
Can a dresser be converted into a filing cabinet?
To fit a normal letter-sized hanging filing system, which needs a dresser drawer at least a foot high, you may need to combine the bottom two rows of drawers into one unit by cutting the bottom out of the upper drawer and making a new drawer front that connects both rows.
How do you keep files in a filing cabinet standing up straight?
The best place to keep and sort your papers is in a file cabinet. Put your files in folders or dividers so they stand up straight in the cabinet. Labels are another way to put the sections in the right order.
What is the smallest depth of a file drawer?
Letter minimum depths are 14 5/16″ for 5/8″ thick and 17 1/4″ for 5/8″ thick in most filing cabinets with the bars facing the front.
What height should a file drawer be?
The minimum recommended height for the inside of a drawer box is 9-1/4″. Based on the thickness and inset of the bottom, minimum heights for the outside of the drawer box are suggested.
How big should a file cabinet’s drawer be?
Cabinets for letter-size paper are usually 15 inches wide, while cabinets for legal-size paper are usually 1814 inches wide. A basic vertical file cabinet in an office is 28.12 inches deep and can hold files that are up to 27 inches long. There are also shallower cabinets, such as 25-inch-deep cabinets with 23-inch-deep drawers and 26-inch-deep cabinets with 25-inch-deep drawers.
What kind of paint do you put on metal cabinets?
Oil-based paint is better than latex paint for painting metal cabinets because latex paint peels off. Ask for help at the paint counter if you don’t know what kind of paint to buy or how to tell them apart.
What should my metal cabinets look like?
Give them a new look by spray-painting them in metallic or textured colors. To make a faded or ombre look, paint each cabinet door or drawer a little lighter than the others. Change out old, boring handles with new, trendy ones, or paint the old ones a new color that goes with the cabinets.
What does it mean to “file laterally”?
When documents are added from the side, the identification tab is put on the side of the file. Grab the edges and sides of the paper to pull it away. This type of file system is better because it takes up less space.
What’s the point of having two file cabinets next to each other?
Unlike vertical cabinets, lateral files let you put documents in drawers on a horizontal plane instead of a vertical plane. Compared to vertical file drawers, these drawers are shorter and pull out less, making it easier to see and find files.
How do you make a file that hangs?
Put the first tab of the file folder inside of the folder. Put the tab in the upper left corner of the folder. As you insert the hanging folder inside the frame, make sure the side tabs extend over the sides of the frame.
A vertical file cabinet or a lateral file cabinet?
Unlike lateral file cabinets, vertical file cabinets are not as big. Even though vertical file cabinets are common because they take up less wall space, most paperwork is kept in lateral file cabinets.