Convert a Trunk to a File Box…with the help of Joan Rivers, Dr. Phil, and a pesky cat.

Ready for a project that is fast and simple? Me too. Let’s talk about the trunk that we upgraded to a file box.

This might not seem ground-breaking, but it is. Our former filing system was This. And This is not a joke.

We are nothing if not classy. And organized.

The thrifted $5 metal trunk-turned-file box has been sitting around for so long that I can’t even find an original photo of it. It began its life dingy gold but has been seriously confused by all of the colors it has been under my roof: first gold, then brown, then red for about 5.4 minutes until Rick asked why there was a fire engine in the house, then blue, and now teal, thanks to a couple coats of Rustoleum 2X Lagoon.

It has, furthermore, held a variety of purposes, from Boob Light Graveyard to Cat House.

And now we’ve had the nerve to convert it from your plain average trunk altogether. Dr. Phil will probably be all up in this nurtured identity crisis. Our story will be featured before the parents who buy their kids pot and after the estranged-sister-in-a-cult-that-eats-tree-bark intervention.

Lucky for you, the conversion process was simpler than a cult brainwashing and cost us only $.98 for a square dowel. That’s less than the price of Tums, which will be necessary after ingesting tree bark.

Converting a trunk to a file box: What you’ll need.

• trunk
• one 1/4”x36” wood dowel (maybe more than one depending on the size of your trunk)
• skinny scrap wood
• Gorilla Wood Glue
• hideous and inefficient former storage system (optional)
• husband who can operate a table saw (not optional)

Converting a trunk to a file box: What you’ll do.

• First, the wood needs to be cut to size. I highly recommend doing the dishes in exchange for your husband completing this step for you. This exchange also guarantees that all parties come away with necessary limbs still attached and not hanging in a bloody mass from the table saw, a perk that my husband is smart enough to recognize. That, and he hates doing the dishes and if I lost my fingers he’d have to do the dishes for the rest of our lives. My approach was foolproof.
• Second, use Gorilla Wood Glue to attach the scrap wood to the sides of the trunk. I used the file folder to determine placement.

• The dowels were glued last. My recommendation here is that you let them cure before you go and hang your 89 pounds of mostly unnecessary files on them, causing them to sag prematurely. Nobody likes premature sagging. Just ask Joan Rivers.

Source-ish

• Next, kick your cat out of the trunk for the 18th time.

• Add your folders.

• Console your cat when she learns she is no longer welcome in the trunk.

• The end.

By the way, I am declaring war on cute and coordinated Pinterest photos that tell me my file folders should be chevron or polka-dotted or hand-painted with “You are my sunshine.” I don’t really care what the inside of my file box looks like and neither does my bank statement. My method is Spinterest: spin around in circles long enough and everything looks cute. Or you vomit. Which isn’t usually cute. But it temporarily takes your mind off of your non-cute file folders. Win.

Where do you keep your files? Is anything in your home experiencing an identify crisis? Do you think Joan Rivers’ face would move if someone poked it with some tree bark?