DIY Card Catalog Cabinet Reveal

See the full tutorial for this project here!

I have wanted a card catalog for the longest time.  I have drooled over them online.  I would pet them in antique stores.  I could not, however, find one that would fit well in our home or wasn't one trillion dollars.  My other concern was that card catalogs are pretty but they aren't exactly useful.

I then had a crazy idea during tax season. I asked Nate if he thought it was possible to build a cabinet that had a card catalog looking front for our office. I had previously seen an awesome faux Murphy bed so I knew the card catalog front should be doable.  The thing was that I needed it to look like an antique piece. It needed to look like it had real drawers and not just wood slapped onto a board.  I wanted it tall and narrow.  I was being uber picky and making a lot of requests of my zombie accountant husband.  Surprisingly he said "Uhhh, sure."  I had to wait impatiently for the end of tax season for my creation came to life.  Ike loves it.

It has a front that looks like drawers.  The hardware looks antique and totally helps make the piece.  The pulls are actually new pieces from D. Lawless Hardware attached with cut tacks.  I'm sort of obsessed with them.

We hemmed and hawed at how to finish the piece.  Do we stain?  Do we paint?  Do we go modern or keep it traditional?  We ended up choosing Minwax Early American.  We wanted an antique look but we didn't want it to be super oaky.  I love how the drawers all stained differently.  Differing wood tones was one of my favorite things about older pieces.

This card catalog is not only pretty but it's also functional.  The front is actually a door that opens up to a cabinet with shelves. 

The shelves will hold our photography equipment and accessories. And then we can close the door and pretend it's just a hipster card catalog.

But it's actually a cabinet.  Whoa.

The legs on the cabinet are from Osborne Wood Products, Inc. The cabinet needed nice looking legs (don't we all) but still something that seemed age appropriate.  These tapered legs are an excellent fit.

Most importantly, Mona found a home!  She looks quite pleased with her new digs.  Or is she not impressed.  I can never tell with her.

This project wasn't exactly the cheapest (I now understand the expensive pricing of card catalogs and we didn't even make drawers). It took us some time to complete. Nate and I are sort of obsessed with it though and we actually found the building process enjoyable. (I helped with the build.  It was dangerous and awesome.)  We'll be back later this week or early next with a tutorial on how we built it.  (Update: see the full tutorial here!)

Are you a card catalog fanatic?  

***The hardware and legs were given to us but we were not compensated for this post.  We enjoy working with great companies to make our crazy building dreams come to life!***