How to Paint Laminate Furniture (with Olive Green Paint)

How to paint laminate furniture in the prettiest olive green furniture paint! Plus the best tips for a professional-looking, brush-free finish!

Get more Green Painted Furniture Ideas here!

showing the shiny and slick laminate top of the dresser

We picked this cute vintage dresser up at our local thrift store.

But the top was made of a thick shiny laminate!

I could tell that it was laminate because of the high gloss sheen the top had and because it felt completely different than wood does.

It felt almost like hard plastic.

Because it has a super shiny and slick surface, it had to be painted a little differently than wood furniture.

It’s easy though! Let me show you!

Table of Contents

Supplies Used For Green Painted Dresser Makeover

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Old Vintage Dresser
Krud Kutter and old rag
220 grit Sandpaper
Tack Cloth / Vacuum with hose
Bonding Primer (more on the best primer below!)
Paint Brush or Paint Sprayer
Paint Couture Paint in Vintage Moss (the olive green furniture paint)
My Favorite Polyurethane
New Hardware

Grab our list of 10 must have supplies for painting furniture too!

Before Painting Laminate Furniture

Paint needs something to hold onto, or else it can easily scratch off.

So before you bust out the paint and paint brush, it’s best to spend just a little bit of time to prep your furniture.

Learn more about How to Prepare Furniture For Painting here.

(This goes for chalk paint too!)

But it’s especially important on laminate furniture.

Laminate is super slick, making it hard for any old paint to hold on.

First, clean your furniture with a grease / oil cutting cleaner.

I like to use Krud Kutter.

Check out our How to Clean Furniture Before Painting post to learn more!

bottle of krud kutter concentrated cleaner or degreaser

sanding the surface of laminate furniture to help paint stick

Then scuff sand with 220 grit sandpaper.

Learn more about the best Sandpaper for Furniture Painting here!

Rub it all over the dresser, making sure that it removes all of the shine.

Check out why Sanding Before Painting Furniture is important here.

You can also check out our How to Paint Laminate Furniture post and see the difference between sanding VS not sanding.

Then remove the dust with a vacuum hose attachment and / or a damp lint free rag.

For the best dust removal, I like to use these tack cloths!

They pick up all the dust and don’t leave any lint behind!

Paint two coats of your choice of bonding primer.

jar of country chic paint clear bonding primer

The exact bonding primer you choose will depend on what your situation is and what you want your furniture to look like.

Here is our list of the best bonding primers for laminate furniture.

For this green dresser, I chose the clear bonding primer from Country Chic Paint.

Mostly because I wanted a clear primer that I could distress.

But also because I wanted to work inside, so I wanted to use a primer that didn’t have a strong odor!

I only put the primer on the laminate top since the rest of the dresser was wood.

I painted one coat of primer on, and then I let it dry for a few hours.

Then I painted the second coat on and let it dry overnight.

Olive Green Painted Dresser

Then I set it up in my paint spraying room so I could paint it with my paint sprayer.

You can paint with your paintbrush, but I like the brush-free finish I get with my paint sprayer.

Learn How to Use a Wagner Double Duty Paint Sprayer here.

I painted 2-3 coats of Paint Couture Paint’s Vintage Moss, making sure to let the paint dry for a couple of hours between coats.

Paint Couture is an acrylic paint that has excellent adhesion properties and is really really good at leveling.

Which means that even if you use a brush to paint it on, you might just get a brush-free finish!!

Here are our top tips on How to Paint Furniture Without Brush Marks.

Check out the rest of the Best Paint for Laminate Furniture options!

Learn more about the step by step process of how to paint a laminate dresser here.

And then it dries to a beautiful matte sheen (but it’s not chalky like chalk paint)

Then I lightly distressed the dresser for a farmhouse-style look.

(Make sure to remove the dust with a vacuum and a tack cloth again!)

Check out this post of 6 great ways for distressing furniture.

If I would have used one of the other bonding primers on the market, I wouldn’t have been able to distress the laminate.

Then I sprayed 3 coats of the very best water-based polyurethane for the best durability and protection.

Making sure to let it dry completely between coats.

Learn ALL of my tips and tricks on How to Spray Polyurethane here!

If you don’t have a paint sprayer, here’s How to Apply Polycrylic to Painted Furniture by hand.

(I also like to sand with 400 grit sandpaper before the last coat of poly for the most smooth feeling finish.)

Then I finished it off with new farmhouse-style drawer pulls.

Learn more about How to Change Hardware on a Dresser in this post.

What do you think?!