Pretty New Office Cabinet with Sliding Doors {Mini Redo}

A quick DIY project to change the height of my new office cabinet!

I recently found a little cabinet with sliding glass doors on FB marketplace and knew it would work well in my office. Turns out the height wasn’t quite right, so I made some minor changes to make it work!

I don’t shop secondhand as much as I used to, simply because I was cluttering our home with my finds. If you like an item even a little bit, you have to grab it knowing it may not be available long. 

After years of visiting Goodwill and antique shops regularly, I’d found so many wonderful treasures…but they started taking over. 😉 

Years ago I decided I needed to cut down on the secondhand shopping, and it has made a HUGE difference in the clutter in our house! Now when I buy something, I have to know where it will go before I bring it home. 

I loved this cabinet so much, if it didn’t work in my office I knew I could make it work in a couple other spots as well:

There’s a Pier 1 tag on the bottom — I don’t think they have actual stores open anymore, just online right? 

I loved the open space on the bottom and the sliding “X” doors. The wood is a lovely color, but I did think about painting it for a split second. 

I’m so glad I decided against it! I knew it would be beautiful in my office with the deep green color (Vintage Vogue) on the bulletin board and built ins. 

First I planned to put it right between the two windows, under that mirror: 

That vintage rolling magazine rack in this photo was one of my absolute favorite secondhand finds EVER…but one day a few months ago I moved it to vacuum and it literally fell apart. 

Like, truly crumbled before my eyes. 😢 I tried putting it back together, but it was a goner.

Since then I’ve been looking for the right item for that spot. The cabinet dimensions were perfect, but when I tried it there it was visually WAY too heavy. 

It was too tall to fit under the TV…so I laid it down on the floor to do some checking. I figured I could disassemble the bottom part and cut the legs down. 

I was right! The bottom section came apart easily. I removed the feet, the bottom shelf and the legs. Of all of the those, the top portion of the legs were my only option to cut because of the hardware components everywhere else:

I used pliers to remove them: 

These legs had a very slight taper to them at the bottom, so when I laid them on the saw to cut I had to prop the narrow end up just a bit like so: 

This pushed that side up just a tad so the cut would be level. 

Give yourself some room if you attempt this with tapered legs! It took a few tries — shaving off just a bit here and there to get them all the exact same length. 

Because the double sided screws needed to go back in, I clamped the legs down and used a drill bit to make a new hole: 

Quick tip — use painter’s tape to mark the depth needed on the drill bit. That way you won’t go too shallow or too deep.

When I had all the legs cut down to the same size, I reinserted the screws: 

I was nervous…even though all the legs were the same length, I was worried it wouldn’t all go back together perfectly. But it did! Whoot!: 

Then I cleaned the cabinet well, put the shelf back inside and then started organizing! 

I moved the printer I had on that wall to the bookcase behind my desk. It will function so much better for me there! 

I LOVE it!! It’s just so lovely in my office and feels like it was made for this space:

It was such a simple change and only took me about 45 minutes from start to finish.

Those sliding doors are my favorite part…I just love them. 😍

I encourage you to see how pieces can work better for your home…you’ll be surprised what a few small tweaks can make! 🙂

Have you found anything great on Facebook Marketplace? I don’t look often, but when I do I always find great buys! 

See all of the DIY projects in my cozy office here:

Original Post – Thrifty Decor Chick