I made so many mistakes with this laminate desk! In this post, I will show you how to paint a desk with laminate the right way!
I picked up this inexpensive desk from Walmart and when we moved into our new house, it just didn’t go with the new house and I was also wanting to update my craft room on a budget. So some chalk paint to the rescue!
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The problem with laminate is that it is a very shiny material and not only that, its not really wood! So that in itself causes some problems when painting it with chalk paint.
It can be done, but there are some special steps I would do if I could do this project over again.
The reality is sometimes we may have inexpensive furniture laying around that we want to re purpose.
If I was going to repaint this desk, I would have applied 2 coats of laminate primer! But I didn’t do that ! Big mistake.
Or I would have spray painted this desk to avoid some of the issues in painting it.
The first issue is that the shiny laminate is very hard to adhere paint to. So either applying a laminate primer or spray painting it would have worked better in this case.
At this point I should have even at least used a sanding block to sand the whole desk down to help the chalk paint to adhere much easier. Because i skipped this step, my paint had a horrible time adhering and I had to use a lot of chalk paint to get it to stick!
The paint I used was a very good quality chalk paint so after a few coats, it did start to look not bad but it required a lot of painting!
My plan for the desk was to paint out the top portion of the desk in Rustoleum Chalked Blush Pink which is a really pretty soft pink. At the time of writing this, I could not find a link for this particular brand so I have linked an alternative brand for you!
And to add some interest, I decided on Rustoleum Chalked Chiffon Creme for the bottom portion of the desk. At the time of writing I could not find this particular brand, and instead I have linked an alternative brand for you!
Considering the amount of paint and time it took for me to get it to this point, I was actually happy with the results!
I hope I was able to help you to steer clear of making the mistakes I made with this laminate desk and perhaps inspired you to give laminate furniture a try!
Are you interested in other chalk painted furniture inspiration?! Check some out here:
- Vintage Nesting Tables Painted with Chalk Paint
- Nursery Dresser Painted with Chalk Paint
- Coffee Bar Makeover
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