How to Paint Ikea Laminate Furniture-TUTORIAL

Oh yes, I did.  I painted laminate furniture.  Can I get at 'Holla' for a pretty furniture makeover!  Something old and ugly turned into something cute and keepable :-) And it really wasn't that scary either, promise.

So here's a peek at the old furniture look.  Yikes on the electric orange, yellow, and red!  We had originally bought this little child's table and chair set at Ikea about 5 years ago for Noah and his bright green room (more on that make-over in another post!).  I still liked the bright colors of it but I wanted it to be more simple and well, white, so I could put it to use in the girls' room (which we used to be Noah's bright green room).  The look of their new room is soft and feminine...I love it...but that is for another time, today we talk laminate make-over!

Here is a backside view of the chairs.  Aren't they cute?  I love the little squirrel cut outs.  I thought about just selling this set and buying an unfinished set but then thought, 'what the heck, why not try to paint it and see what happens!'  I'm glad I did, cause it turned out soooo awesome!  I couldn't be happier.

The laminate was chipping on some of the edges due to normal wear and tear.  I thought this would be a plus in my make-over as it might give the new paint some character so I didn't sand any of the chips and dings down at all.  This set was in our basement being unused for the past year so I just did a quick wipe away of dust and then a little scrub here and there of old kid goo that just comes with 5 years of toddlers living in my home.

I ended up going through four complete cans of this. Zinsser Cover Stain Oil-Base Primer.  This stuff rocks...big time. It allowed me to cover that dark yet oh-so-bright orange/red and do so WITHOUT sanding any of the surfaces!  Cut out a step?  Yup, I am all over that!  I need to work quickly during Oliver's naps so I tend to choose spray paint over regular paint in a can.  I just can't deal with brushes and drips when I'm on a time constraint, I'm waaaaay to impatient.  This stuff was the perfect thing for me.

 

After I wiped everything down, I sprayed all the furniture completely with the Zinsser Primer.  That means no orange showing through whatsoever.  I let everything cure for 2 days just in case I had some weird peeling issues, which I didn't, yeehaw!

Then I used this stuff.  Rust-Oleum Paint Plus in Semi Gloss White.  I LOVE this spray paint.  It covers so dang well.  I feel like it's an endless can of spray paint with how many projects one can covers.

I used one, that's right ONE, can of paint to cover the entire set of furniture.  Awesome.  I gave it one coat as the coverage was so great.  You see, even those little nooks and crannies by the squirrel cut out were covered nicely.

Do you see that coverage?  Love it.  PS.  Please ignore my new-to-us white grass, Christmas has come early around these parts ;-)  No really, I should probably use a drop cloth but the impatient in me just has no time to get it out.

I let everything dry in my garage for a day before bringing it all inside to get the 'royal' treatment for the kids, ie. crayons, markers, chairs being tipped over and stood upon.

And guess what?  The paint has stood up fine!

So if you happen to have some laminate furniture in your home that you are not loving, try a little painty-paint job on it and give it a new life.  I am so lovin' this new piece in the girls' room, it totally fits the feminine style and look of their room so much better than that bright orange and I didn't have to buy another set and sell the old one to get it, yayyyy!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,

Boy's Room Makeover: Sherwin Williams Perfect Palette-Part 3...The Reveal and a Giveaway!

Oh boy, oh boy! Today is the day, the big reveal! I get to show you how I turned our ugly guest bedroom/office/dumping ground of randomness into Noah's very own big-boy room! You might remember my posts here and here where I talked about the "before" and "my inspiration" for his room makeover. Well, before we go too far, let's take a little looksie at the before pictures one more time, since I just showed you the after. Are you ready to cringe?

The Before

Yup. Remember that ugly wallpaper? That awful bed? All that junk? Well, say good-bye because it's all gone. Well, not all gone, some of it just put away properly instead of thrown into the room.  Garage sale inventory and an organized basement were two more great perks from this room makeover, holla!

The After

We had the bigger furniture for his room already. We just converted his crib frame into the full-size bed option it had and pulled the matching dresser in from the room he shared with Penelope.

The Before

How about another before shot? This is the other side of the room, directly across from the bed. Oooh, baby! Not a pretty sight, eh? Full of all the kids' books we own, entertaining supplies, college textbooks from the good old days. Ah well, it's all organized and put away nicely now.

The After

And now! So much better.

Now remember I used Sherwin-Williams new Chip It! tool to find my perfect color palette.

This is the picture (above) that I "chipped" with Sherwin-Williams' new Chip It! button. This button lets you use any picture you find online or upload yourself to create a perfect palette for inspiration. You can get the Chip It! button just like the Pin It button for Pinterest. First you drag the ChipIt! button below to your toolbar.

Whenever you spot a photo online that you like, just click the ChipIt! button and then click the photo itself. And voila! You get the picture's paint colors. Simple Simon, dudes.

By using the ChipIt! button I was able to pull colors into the room that were similar to my inspiration picture. I pulled in the gray, blue and orange colors and then added the green since Noah loves green (his two most favorite colors just happen to be green and orange). I also found the perfect color coordinating (and holy cow is it soft!) organic fabrics from Birch Fabrics over at my lovely blog sponsor, Fabricworm to use to make pillow covers, wall art and re-cover a lamp, too. (I showed you how to recover a lamp in this post here.  and I'll show you how I made the pillow covers later along with a few other pieces I did too!)  With these additions, the room had nice pops of color throughout and the fabric brought the bed area and reading nook area together nicely.

**The fabrics I used are Ellie Fam and Commute both lines are organic cottons from Birch Fabrics found at Fabricworm.

Fabric Covered Wall Art in the Reading Nook

I decided to paint his room Lazy Gray instead of Sensuous Gray from the ChipIt! board, as the former is a wee bit lighter in color and seems to work better in his room, which is really only 10 x 12 feet. It only has one window -- so it doesn't get a whole lot of light -- and I felt this paler shade of gray didn't make the room feel too dark and closed in.

I added a pop of coordinating orange color to his window by making a simple valance/cornice board with orange fabric (tutorial to come!)  I opted for a valance instead of drapery because of the room-size, plus three little ones I know seem to think curtains are just really long napkins. ;-)

Here is the view opposite the window:

I used Abacus Pool from Birch Fabrics to re-cover a plain lampshade from Ikea (tutorial found here!) and to pull that pretty shade of blue into the room.

Noah made his own wall art for over his bed, what a kid! To go with the theme of the fabric used in his room, he drew a plane, train, car and bike and wrote each word above the picture, this was also good writing practice for him :-)  I framed them in simple white frames from Ikea.

I used Dana's Rollie Pollie pattern and home decor fabric from Ikea to make a fun (and giant!) stuffed pillow for Noah to sit on while he reads books in his book nook. Instead of filling it with stuffing, I just filled it with the tens of millions of stuffed animals we have accumulated over the years. Perfect since now they are all outta sight, outta mind!

And we actually have had these little piggies on Noah's dresser pretty much since he was born. They are from Ikea, though they don't carry them anymore. They add a nice pop of color and touch of green to that corner of the room. I love how he put a band-aid on one of their legs to tell them apart. He said, 'The one with the band-aid is named "Parade" and the other one's name is "Ice Cream."' How cute that he named them!

Okay, so that's it. Room makeover complete! What did you think? Any questions?

Now onto the giveaway!
To enter, tell me about a room in your home that you'd like to make over using the Chip It! Tool for a chance to win a $1,000 Visa gift card and $200 Sherwin-Williams gift card.

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 7/23/12-8/10/12.

Be sure to visit Sherwin-Williams' brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggersí posts!

XOXO,