DIY Desk Makeover – How to Paint Laminate

How to paint a laminate desk to transform it from trash to treasure and give it some farmhouse charm in this DIY desk makeover.

I’d been scouring Craigslist for a desk for my son’s room for a while. Nothing had been the right size, shape and especially the right price because, as usual, I didn’t want to spend a ton of money. It pays to keep checking back because one day I finally saw one that checked all of the boxes and it happened to be FREE. I called dibs!

Do people do that anymore??

I did, but when I went to pick it up, I saw that it was in super rough shape, and unfortunately, not real wood. Although it goes against what I always say about only working with real wood pieces (which I share in my tips on painting furniture), I took it anyway, for three reasons. One, I actually wanted to see what I could do with it. I thought, if it doesn’t turn out well, we’ll just recycle it. Call it an experiment. 🙂  Two, it at least seemed really solid, it was definitely heavy and, three, did I mention it was FREE??

The plan and inspiration…

The inspiration for this desk makeover using paint was my son’s quilt, which has navy, red and tan. Red happens to be his favorite color so it was easy enough to tie the red into the room with the desk and some other accessories.  I also happened to have the red paint already from another project we did this summer.

What you’ll need to paint laminate:

• Sandpaper in varying sizes
• Palm sander
• Primer
• Paint
• Paint brushes
• Handles or pulls 
• Antique Wax

Steps for this laminate DIY desk makeover:

Here she is, very beat up, stickers on it, handles broken off and all…

 

 

The front was completely chewed up…

 

 

The particle board was even coming apart.

 

It was a hot mess.

Where to begin when painting laminate furniture…

1. Cleaning

I started like I do on all my furniture makeovers and I gave it a good cleaning inside and out. Luckily there were no yucky smells! There were some stickers stuck to the outside in quite a few places and I used Goo Gone to remove those.  If you’ve never used it, the stuff is amazing.

I vacuumed the inside and then wiped everything down with water and a bit of dish soap just to get the grease/grime off.

2. Prep for painting.

In order to get the surface ready for paint,  I broke out the palm sander with a 150 grit sand paper and started working on the top. I really only wanted to take off the shine a bit so I could prime it but I discovered that the top part was wood or at least a thin layer of it which was enough to stain! I was super excited! I was going to paint the top but, change of plans.

I sanded the top down until the raw wood was smooth and clear.  After using the 150 grit, I went to 220 and then 320. The edges are particle board and I sanded them down as well.

I removed the hardware and she looks better already…

 

 

Then I sanded the body of the desk, again, just to remove the shine and prep it for primer so it had something to stick to. When you are painting laminate furniture, it’s super important to use primer.

 

 

After it was sanded, and all dusted off. I started by giving the bottom a coat of primer. I always paint first and then stain,

Right after I primed the bottom, I stained the top with Minwax Ipswich Pine.

 

 

I thought the top was too light at this point so I gave it a coat of Early American, my usual go to stain color.

 

 

3. Paint.

Once the primer was thoroughly dry, I painted the first coat of red paint. Don’t worry, it won’t be that bright. I have a plan. 🙂

 

 

Here’s the second coat on this old desk makeover…

 

 

I still wasn’t happy with the color of the top so I added a third coat of stain in Early American and then once that dried, I gave it a three coats of polyurethane in a satin finish.

Here comes the fun part, I wanted the piece to feel more aged so I used antique wax from Country Chic Paint. I had used this before on my antique cabinet makeover and I loved it! You can see how it darkens the paint and gives it a more aged/antique feel here…

 

 

 

4. Change out the pulls.

The original pulls on the desk were not the industrial kind of style I wanted and some of them were broken so I changed them out. Unfortunately, the holes were only 2.5 inches apart and, fun fact, the standard drawer pull is 3 inches. That meant that Hubby had to drill all new holes, which he was happy to do. LOL. – seriously, no.

I picked these pulls up at Hobby Lobby on sale but they also have similar drawer pulls at Amazon.

Once the pulls were on, this laminate furniture makeover was complete. Here she is all spiffed up and in her new home…

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see our other furniture makeovers here

Desk makeover before and after…

 

 

This cheap DIY desk makeover turned out waaaaayyyyy better than I thought it was going to.  It will not be an heirloom piece by any means but it’s a different DIY desk idea for kids and is perfect for now. Besides, what’s better than FREE?

I have a couple more projects to do in order to finish my son’s room so stay tuned for the full reveal soon.

Happy DIY’ing!

Col

Sign up for emails and never miss a post!

Follow along…    Pinterest    Facebook    Instagram