We have had this Ikea side table (or in our case we use it as a coffee table) for a while now. We bought it to match our little entertainment shelf, but where our entertainment shelf is actual wood, this side table is not. It is fake wood and that look has started to bother me. So I did something about it!
I was worried that painting that kind of fake laminate wood would be hard to do and end up looking streaky. After looking around though, I found Zinsser primer and it seemed to do the trick. I put about 2 coats of primer on the side table and then painted over it with a gloss white. The primer helped a lot, but the gloss white really did the finishing trick. Once that heavy gloss white paint went on you couldn't tell whether the side table was wood, fake wood, or something else. Alternatively, you could use a chalkboard paint instead of the zinsser primer and then paint on top of that. I have used both of these methods with success.
Then to spice it up I added a streak of bright green around the top edge. I just discovered that you can order little sample jars of any paint color (at Lowes or Home Depot) for only about $3. How awesome! So I ordered the green that I wanted in a sample and that proved to be more than enough paint to work with. I still have quite a bit leftover for another project too.
So there you go! Primer, gloss paint, and a fun paint sample can do the trick in spicing up an old (or Ikea) piece of furniture. Now that I have had success with painting this side table I am tempted to paint every other piece of Ikea furniture in our house. Oh the joys of paint!!
