Put the brush down and step away from the paint.

I’m in the midst of transitioning Cormac’s room into a big boy room and this Malm dresser from Ikea is way to blah to be in any after picture of mine!!!

Boring….

I could not bring myself to paint this dang thang.

I have painted Devon’s furniture (read about that here) and love the results. I wish the color were a little more white-gray than the white-blue it looks like, but I digress. (You know when I get bored enough I will repaint that shizz…)

I still mentally hug my painted hutch every time I walk into my kitchen. (Click here to pay a visit to that special girl).

I even have more painted stuff I haven’t shared on the blog yet, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do all that work for a piece of fake furniture.

So I decided to spray paint. Like most Ikea furniture items, this is laminate, not real wood. Which requires a whole other set of painting instructions whether you choose to paint it the old fashion way or spray paint it.

So my google search started with “spray painting laminate furniture.” 

If you have ever googled with the intention of figuring out the right way to do something, you know that there are about 10,000 best ways to do something.

So I did the only thing a not-really-but-kind-of lazy-girl would do. I chose the simplest approach.

These are the steps:

1. Sand- don’t go crazy. I just spent about 5 minutes total on this part.

2. Prime with spray paint primer

You only need a light coat of primer. I used less than a whole can on the bureau and all for drawers.

3. Spray paint MANY THIN COATS.

Very thin. This is what the dark blue looks like after the first coat:

I lost count of how many coats I did but I used two cans for the bureau and only one for the drawers.

It was definitely worth it as I had NO drips! The bureau is very sleek and without any grooves or details the drips would have been very noticeable.

I will say that I had a little blotchy issue which I problem solved by creating step 4- add a coat of polyurethane. I think the blotchyness was because of the temperature. It’s advised that you don’t spray paint under 65 degree weather.

Find me a garage in Massachusetts in January that’s above 65!!!!

The poly was a great touch and suggested my many for added durability so I am happy I went with it. Looks to shiny and it does seem a lot more durable.

Here’s the finished result:

I’ll add more when I blog about the whole room makeover.

But I may have found my alternative addiction spray paint!!!!