Filing Cabinets Transformation

I broke down and started working on these things! Here they are, in all of their uglified-ness:







See? Can you see how ugly they are now? They're yellowed, and chipped, and covered with grime and brass fixings. Hideous.

I started by removing the hardware. Once I started doing that, I realized that some of the screws were missing. Mental note to get some replacements from my favorite DIY store, Lowe's!
I also noticed that the filing cabinets aren't the same. I mean...they are, but they aren't. The hardware on one is much thickerheavier and older, and the other one was all shiny and pretty. Well...pretty as far as brass goes.

Here's one of them, sans hardware:



Poor filing cabinet :( It's looking so pathetic.

Here are all the brass hardware pieces laid out, ready to be beautified! As a side note, I wouldn't usually think that spray painting a lock would be a good plan...but, since I don't have the key for these things, and the locks' purpose will be decorative, I'm not too worried.



Armed with my handy-dandy, most favorite fixer-upper weapon of all, Rustoleum, I set to transforming those uglies! I used Rustoleum Metallic Satin Nickel.



And here they are! They're hard to see, because the trash bag is the same color now, but I think they already look soooo much better!


More to come soon! I'm going to see where my husband is at on his journey home, and might make a quick trip to Lowe's if I can beat him back :)

*EDIT* I didn't make it to Lowe's - I'm going to have to do that tomorrow :/
However, I've encountered another dilemma. I had been intending to paint the filing cabinets white like the Pottery Barn concept mentioned in this post...but it looks as if the filing cabinets are wood with a decent grain. I won't know for sure until tomorrow after I've stripped the paint off, but I'm considering staining them.

If there's decent enough woodgrain, just look at all these possibilities. Specifically, I'm looking at the brightly colored ones (Minwax Water Based Wood Stain Colors made with Clear Tint Base -- I particularly like Antique Jade and Verdigris)

I'm planning on painting the room they'll theoretically be in Glass Green by Laura Ashley


What do you think? To paint, or not to paint? To stain, or not to stain?