REPURPOSED METAL LOCKER
Salvaged and repurposed metal locker into mudroom shoe organizer
Antique stores have the best finds! I scored a gorgeous rusty old metal locker / metal cabinet at my local antique shop last week. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to repurposed this metal locker but after seeing it’s $20 price tag I knew it had to come home with me.
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—> CLICK here to see how I repurposed the old metal door into a porch sign <—
I took the tag inside, paid for it, then loaded it up in our brand new to us fancy minivan (literally the nicest car we’ve ever owned and I still can’t believe it’s ours!!). Thank goodness I had just put this cargo liner blanket thing in there so it kept my van from getting gross stuff all over it or scratched up. Three of the four daughters were excited about our new find but one of them…not so much lol!
A week after bringing it home I finally had time to do something with it. I decided I was going to turn it into a muddy boot/shoe holder for our sunporch / mudroom. Oh my goodness it turned out so freaking cute!
I have seen others paint their metal cabinets / lockers that look like this but honestly I loved everything about this piece as is. Really, didn’t want to scrape off any of the old paint or add anything to it. That is to say I thought it was completely perfect just the way it was, chippy paint and all. The only thing I did to it was remove the door and clean it up a bit.
It was full of crunchy old leaves, spiderwebs, and lots of dirt, rust, and chipped paint. First, I used my vacuum to get all of that out of there. There really was no need to wipe it down with any spray cleaning agent. I mean, after all, it will be holding shoes that have just stomped through a chicken coop.
With just a light cleaning this metal cabinet looked a million times better. I did vacuum off the big chipped paint spots. I figured those will end up falling off anyway soon from putting shoes in there.
The legs on this piece were in pretty good shape but because our sunporch slants down for drainage the cabinet sat lopsided. To fix that I put a small piece of scrap wood under two of the feet. That worked great!
On one of the shelves I added a bucket to store bug spray and sunscreen. It took me forever to find a piece of chalk so I could write sunscreen & bug spray on the front of that lol! Oh the mom life, gotta love it! Next to that I put a wire basket and filled it with the bubbles and jump ropes that the girls got for Easter. If you need a cheap Easter craft for your rustic home décor check out this adorable moss bunny sign I made this year.
I don’t think I could have found a more perfect shoe holder for this space. It’s unique and beautifully imperfect just like our family.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.
