I am in the market for a file cabinet.

Yes, that’s right.  This is possibly the least romantic furniture purchase you can make in the years prior to requiring assisted living facilities, but the sad fact is that now that I’m a real adult, I do in fact have paperwork that needs to be kept.  Seven years’ worth of tax documents, insurance papers, lease documents, continuing legal education certificates… yep, that’s some hot stuff.  What can I say, my life is thrills 24/7!

To date, this paperwork has been living in a black plastic crate that I have had for so long that I can’t remember where it came from any more.  While I lived like a student for a good long time after graduating from school, I finally watched one too many hours of HGTV a couple of years ago and have been slowly adding pieces of actual furniture to my apartment ever since.  Although I do have an unparalleled ability to ignore boxes in corners after a month or two, the crate is currently living out in the middle of my living room, which seems a bit much.

So, I am finally biting the bullet and spending a few hundred dollars that could be a really cute Botkier satchel on my paperwork. I don’t have a whole room to be my “home office,” so anything that I get needs to be decent looking, as I’m going to have to live with it in either my living room or my bedroom. The problem is that the majority of the file cabinets on the market tend to be either a) really big, or b) really basic and made out of metal.  I already have a desk that I really like (from the Baronet Java collection), so integrated office systems aren’t really an option.  Here are the ones I’m liking so far.

From Pottery Barn, the Porter 2-Drawer

Simple, clean, nice-looking.  The white wouldn’t work in my apartment, but it also comes in an espresso stain that would be perfect.  At $399, it’s not the cheapest possible option, but it’s solidly built and has two legal/letter file drawers, which would be nice for business paperwork.  I only use letter size files, as I have an aversion to legal sized paper that no doubt relates to my jaunt through the legal profession, but the drawers will be a perfect size for what I’m looking for.

The Align file end table from Room & Board.  (Sorry, can’t post the pic!)  This is more expensive, but it has clean, modern lines and is slightly less obvious about being a file cabinet.  The thing I like best?  It’s made from sustainable bamboo in a great ebony stain.  The drawback is that it’s on the pricey side at $599.

The Reveal file cabinet from Crate & Barrel. At $799, this might be over the top for me, but I am always a sucker for a little detail and subtle Asian touches.  This cabinet’s price is presumably due to the fact that it’s constructed with traditional Chinese joinery rather than nails out of solid walnut (LOVE walnut), with a lattice-work top covered by glass.  I don’t really want to spend that much on a file cabinet, but I bet this is gorgeous in person.

Last but not least, the Bungalow File Cabinet from Crate & Barrel.  At $329 it’s the cheapest of the lot, and it’s also less aggressively file cabinet-y than the Porter with slightly angled legs and a beveled top.  (Okay, it’s a little Asian too.  I admitted I was a sucker for it!)  While it’s not solid walnut (oak veneer and engineered wood), the mocha finish would work just fine with my other furniture, and it also has one legal/letter sized drawer, which would probably be enough with regular recourse to the shredder.

Any votes or suggestions?

Tags: Crate & Barrel, file cabinet, furniture, Pottery Barn, Room & Board

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Et alia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.