How do I refinish a wood laminate night stand?

Duffy Deitz
by Duffy Deitz

I have 2 night stands that have a laminated wood (I think) surface. The are stained and the laminate is puckering. Is there a way to fix them?

  5 answers
  • Betty Boop Betty Boop on Aug 11, 2018

    I had some tables the same way, what I did was take a hand sander and smooth out the surface as much as possible, I had these small tile square's, I took laneolium glue and glued the squares on the top of the tables, I layed them down before glueing them to make a pattern, I took and layed them to were they would over hang on the top maybe a fourth of an inch,then when I was satisfied with it I glued them down but before that I had 4 mirror squares that I placed in the middle and then glued the squares around the mirror squares,then I took the hinges off the door and drawers and painted the side's a beautiful turquoise color , I used corner molding to frame in the top of the night stand, I had some different hinges that had a silver finish and put them on the door and drawers, the silver tone really made the turquoise color pop. Use colors that you love and matches with the curtains and bedsets. You can use Rust-Oleum paint and you don't have to sand the intire table just the top enough to get the tiles on smoothly, also if you don't have any tiles you can purchase enough to do that but also there's the tile coasters that's got great design on them. Good luck with your project. Also I did a table top by using ice cream sticks to make a wooden surface and then painted them with high gloss paint.

  • Cathy Dillon Cathy Dillon on Aug 11, 2018

    First question is what is UNDER the laminate? In my bathroom ( was CHEAP home depot) we have a white laminate over particleboard, which WHEN WET absolutely disintegrates. Same problem under the kitchen sink which got wet. Because the exposed edge of the particle board is so vulnerable, I COVERED it with Stick-on-Vinyl " shelf paper".


    IF there is perfectly nice solid wood underneath I would say work with the real wood and you'll be happy. If real wood, Remove the laminate and take stock.

  • Pineapple Pineapple on Aug 12, 2018

    I painted a pair of laminate nightstands for a client and the tops were buckling from liquid being placed on them. I sanded down as much as I could and glued embossed wallpaper on the tops and painted. They came out great.

  • Birdz of a Feather Birdz of a Feather on Aug 12, 2018

    You have a few options when it comes to a repair like this. Whichever method you choose depends on how valuable the pieces are and whether you want to maintain the current look or not:


    A. You can cut away the puckered veneer with a utility knife, fill with wood filler and sand it smooth. Use green tape to surround the patch first as shown in the picture to keep the repair neat. If you use this method, your will have to paint.


    If you have to paint, there are several primer products on the market you can use first that will allow paint to stick to laminate but the one I personally love is called Stix. It's my go-to favourite primer because it sticks to all challenging materials. As a matter of fact, we just used it to transform an Ikea cabinet. You can see our Hometalk post here to see how well it worked (and you'll find a link to the product too): https://www.hometalk.com/diy/kitchen-dining/kitchen-dining-furniture/transform-an-ikea-wall-cabinet-with-crackle-medium-36969259


    B. The other method is to slice where the veneer is bubbled/puckered and glue under the airspace. You would then have to clamp the wood to re-flatten the veneer. To prevent the glue that will ooze out from sticking to the clamp, we put a piece of paper over the repair first and sand it away when it's dry. You should then be able to sand or strip the finish and re-stain if you're careful not to sand through the thin veneer. (The second picture shows a split in the veneer that we just glued so we could repair an old table this way.


    C. Remove the entire piece of laminate (there are methods to soak/steam it off). Then you would put a new piece of laminate on and refinish to match the rest.