DIY Home Filing System in a Blanket Chest or Trunk

Turn a blanket chest or trunk into a home filing system complete with color-coded files to maximize your organization.
colored files, colored markers
Updated 01/2023

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Get Organized

I love an organized home and today I'm sharing a super simple way to organize your home files, as well as a DIY filing cabinet system that is as beautiful as it is functional!

A cluttered house is a cluttered mind! I'm one happy mama when everything is put in its place! While I don't like to deal with messy piles and stacks of paper, a couple days work leads to infinite rewards!

Earlier this week I shared a cedar chest makeover with a bold and colorful outside. Today it's all about the inside of that blanket chest! I'm going to show you how Mr DIY and I retrofit a blanket chest to serve as an organized filing system that looks beautiful in any room of our home!

File System That Works

Before I share that tutorial, I'm excited to show you how I dealt with the actual paperwork. I'm a visual person, and any way I can make my life easier pays off in the long run! 

I was shopping at Target for file necessities and found these FriXion Erasable ColorSticks and FriXon Erasable Colors Marker Pens! Y'all, did you read that...they're erasable! They contain a unique thermo-sensitive gel ink formula that disappears with erasing friction. I knew they would be perfect for labeling my files and I couldn't wait to try them out!

FYI, I found large packs in the office aisle and smaller packs in the back-to-school section of the store.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist and often need a couple do-overs! That goes for my handwriting as well. Being able to easily erase my mistakes over and over, without damaging my files, was incredibly freeing and totally took the stress out of getting it perfect the first time!

Here's a little video so you can see these erasable pens in action.


Onto my filing system. I purchased a set of colored hanging folders. Then I organized my paperwork into categories: Banking, Investments, Personal, Health, Home, Auto, Insurance. These were the categories that made sense for our family...yours will probably be slightly different!

colored file folders, markers

I used the FriXion Erasable Markers to write the sub-categories on file folders in a matching marker color. This system is going to make it extremely easy to find and file paperwork! If it doesn't match, it doesn't belong there!

organize home office files by color

I love how it all came together!

Trunk turned home filing system

Our beautifully organized files were ready for their new home...the painted cedar blanket chest. Mr DIY was the brains behind figuring out how to transform this chest/trunk into a usable file cabinet!

The issue: the trunk was too narrow to hold a normal filing system.

Our solution: multiple hanging systems going across the width of the trunk. This actually is a much easier way to file; no more cricks in my neck!

Here's how we accomplished this trunk to filing cabinet makeover.

SUPPLIES USED


file rails, wood dowels, drill

Mr DIY nailed the square dowels into the cedar trunk, basically creating a 3-sided box on each end.

create filing system in blanket chest or trunk

Additional dowels were nailed into the front and back of the trunk, giving us 3 equal filing spaces so we have lots of room to grow! 

The PVC rails slide on top of the horizontal dowels, creating a spot to hang the files from.
create a filing system in a trunk or blanket chest
We made sure to leave enough space so the files aren't dragging on the bottom of the cedar chest, but hanging freely.

trunk turned filing cabinet

This color coded filing system is going to make it so easy to stay organized! For the first time in my life, I'm not dreading the chore of filing our paperwork! And if I ever choose to change the labels, it's a simple matter of erasing and rewriting!

color coded files in trunk

organize home files
This color coded filing system is an easy way to take control of all the paperwork that every home has to deal with! No more wondering where an important document is...no more piles of "to be filed" paperwork hanging around the house!

You can free the mess in your home and take control of your home files!

Click here to see 7 more amazing solutions for your home!

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organize home files by color in blanket chest or trunk


bringing beauty to the ordinary,

Disclosure: I was compensated by Collective Bias for this post,
but all opinions are my own.

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Comments

  1. JessicaSeptember 13, 2017 at 12:12 PM

    This is a good use of furniture, making drawer to keep your important books.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karan SharmaApril 18, 2018 at 9:24 AM

    It's really amazing and also a good use of furniture.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BookishBearJune 3, 2020 at 11:08 AM

    Looks great! Can you share what the internal dimensions of the trunk are, as I may make my own trunk as well?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mcgypsy9August 1, 2021 at 12:51 PM

    Now that’s something I’ve not seen before and I just love this idea! I have several trunks around here with nothing in them and could really use the extra filing space. Thanks so much for sharing and I really do love this!

    ReplyDelete

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