Painting Ikea Furniture

I've heard painting laminate furniture can be AWFUL. I did my research and read about which primer to buy etc. It was awful--- I have to agree with what I have read. However, I finally finished it!

There she is!

Below is a before and after picture 

I read online to start with kilz spray primer.

I used two cans for the priming.

Next I bought this rustoleum spray paint from Home Depot:

I must have used between 4-6 cans of this stuff and I was so frustrated because it was looking really streaky 

      ^ see all the streaks?! Looked awful!!!

I tried applying more coats but it wasn't working. So I went back to homedepot and decided to buy roll on paint. I did my best to match the color from memory. 

I had much better luck with the roll on paint. If you are going to paint laminent furniture I would recommend roll on paint with a sponge roller.

Now for the doors....I wish I had taken a picture of the steps but if you remember from the before picture they were plain frosted glass doors 

Well I didn't really like the look of them and I wanted to dress the piece up a bit so I decided to cut trim with a hand saw and mider box for the 45 degree angles and place it on them like a square. I just used liquid nails adhesive to glue the trim to the door.

This is the same concept from Our Old Abode blog http://ouroldabode.blogspot.com/2012/03/hollow-core-door-makeover.html?m=1

So after all the parts were painted with the roll on paint it looked much better....now time to dress it up with hardware! 

I really like how the brass hardware looked with the green so I decided to use these brass corners on the sides for a "trunk" look:

I think they were around $3 for a pack of 4 corners

My roommate and I put them on the TV stand:

I thought it still looked like it was missing something so back to Home Depot I went.....again.....

Found these brass handles that were also really reasonably priced: 

I think they were less than $5 for a pack of 2. We put it on the center of each side. I think it really added to the "trunk" look!

And lastly, I found a brass clasp to replace the previous handles:

And here she is: