How To Paint Laminated Furniture

Painting “worn out”, old furniture may be a great way to bring its previous look back or make it look absolutely different by painting on it a unique flowery pattern. The process of painting furniture made of a solid piece of wood is rather easy since any furniture may simply be polished. However, the majority of modern and not so expensive furniture is made of plywood. In other words, it is a thin piece of wood. It may also be made of plastic that is glued to a piece of particle board. The furniture made of plywood is quite hard to paint. However, if you learn a couple of tricks, as a result, your item of furniture will be professionally painted in the colour that you’ve chosen. We’ll show you how to do that.

Polishing And Clearcoling An Item Of Furniture

1. Dismantle the item. If the item of furniture that you’re going to paint has pull-out lockers or any other detachable elements, you’d better detach them from the item before painting it. This way, no drops of paint will get to the places where the parts are connected.

2. Polish the item with a thin piece of an emery sheet. The colour will last longer if the surface is a bit rough. In order to make the clearcole get attached to the paint better you need to polish the whole surface with a thin sheet of an emery paper. Polish carefully so that not to polish it up to the particle board part that is underneath.

3. Wipe out the dust left after the polishing. Vacuum the polished surface. Then, take a special sticky piece of cloth and thoroughly wipe the item out removing any dust left after the vacuuming.

4. Cover the item with a layer of clearcole. Once the surface is polished, you may cover it with any kind of an inner clearcole. You’d better apply clearcole on the surface with a high-quality brush made of polyester. However, a disposable foam-rubber brush will also do. You need to apply the clearcole in long, smooth strokes, trying to get in the place of a previous stroke a bit and you need to make the layer as thin and smooth as possible.

5. Give the clearcole time to dry. It will dry in an hour, however you’d better wait a day before starting to paint it. This time is needed for the clearcole to solidify. This way you’ll make your item last longer and protect it from possible scratches.

Painting

1. Paint the plywood item of furniture. You may use practically any kind of paint appropriate for painting plywood furniture. Ideally, it may be a latex paint for interior use.

2. In order to get the result you aim to get you need to cover the item with not less than 4 layers of paint. Before you apply one more layer, you need to wait for 1 day and polish any air bubbles if necessary. The result will be better if you apply several thin layers instead of one thick layer.

3. Assemble the furniture. Once the paint dries (the necessary time for this is not less than 1 day), you may get the parts of it back together.