Scrap Wood File Folders

Hi there! It’s been a bit quiet around here since I’ve been at Haven, my first blogging conference! I had such a blast meeting all of my favorite bloggers and attending classes to help this place grow! And I guess Atlanta wasn’t ready for me to leave as scheduled, because our flight ended up cancelled at the last minute and my mom, aunt and I stuck around for another day until we got a new flight. It was fun, but I am so unbelievably happy to be home!

Before I left, Anthony and I worked on a few projects for the office. You may have heard me complain about the lack of organization in there, so I couldn’t wait to build a few new things to help make life easier. And because there’s nothing I hate worse than digging though piles of papers and still not finding what I’m looking for, I figured it was time to get a few things under control before I became a complete basket case.

Enter in our new scrap wood file folders. They’re made entirely of scrap wood we had lying around the garage…

Here’s how we made them…

We started with a leftover board, which Anthony cut at 12″ high for the front…

Then he ran it through the table saw, making each side 4.5 inches wide…

He cut the piece for the back out of the same stuff, but only at 6 inches tall…

For the two sides, we used leftover flooring underlayment from our office plank wall…

He cut them 12 inches tall x 11 inches wide…

Then, cut the angle for the top of the sides…

Once all the pieces were cut, we started assembling them together…

We used a clamp to keep everything in place…

And Anthony used his nail gun to secure them together…

With all the sides together, we flipped the box over and cut a piece of wood for the bottom. We used the same flooring underlayment…

He nailed it into place…

Then, I wiped them down and stained them with Early American by Minwax…

To finish them, I used Minwax’s dark finishing wax and applied a good coat over the wood…

And then, to make organizing a bit easier, I attached metal book plate tags to the front of them…

I printed out each of my different categories, cut them to size, and popped them into the tags…

With that, they were done and ready to use. I didn’t waste a minute!

I love that we made them a bit wider, they hold a bunch of folders…

And I was a tad worried that they’d be too heavy, but they’re not at all. In fact, I like that I can store a few more things in them than the standard cardboard file folders…

They also look pretty amazing together… and those tags… I love them!

They’re just what our office was needing… more organization!

And I can’t help but love the fact that they were made from pieces just laying around our shop! They were free to make and we actually narrowed down our scrap pile…

Now I’m wondering what else I can make out of that pile of scraps… hmmm….