This is the after, and part of this piece like the top and the closed in side were a laminate finish!
Now... How to get started.
First take off all the hardware and put them all in a baggy so you don't lose the little pieces.
Second: sand the thing, but be careful if you piece is laminate. For the laminate pieces you only want to sand lightly with a small grit sand paper, with something 120 grit or higher- the higher the number of the sand paper the finer the grit - for the pieces that are real wood you could go as low as 80 grit, but be careful to not go too crazy, especially if you are using an electric sanders, because the sander and the wood will get hot and the paint will start melting and turning into these sticky areas that are a pain to get off. If you are trying to just get one layer of paint off then I suggest do a run over it with the 80 grit then move to 100, then finish off with 120!or 150 for a nice smooth finish.
Third: now you want to clean the wood off. For real wood use tcp cleaner- found at any hardware store, or just soap and water. For laminate that has already been sanded lightly clean the surfaces with a gloss remover, it will be at the hardware store by the paint thinners. Once everything is clean and dry you are ready to paint.
Forth: time to paint. With laminate it's a good idea to prime it with ZINsser bulls eye 123 primer. It comes in a spray and regular paint. On real would you can either prime first, but if I don't want the white to show through then I use a paint with primer in it, in a semi gloss. If you use a flat paint and want to finish with a colored stain, the stain will get sucked up by the flat paint and one it is hard to rub off and two it will dramatically change the color of the paint.
For the piece above I used the spray primer on the whole thing, because I wasn't too sure which parts were laminate and which were wood. Since I was using the pink as the top coat it didn't matter to much.
Next: after you have primed and waited for to dry(the spray primer dries fast. I did two thin coats a d was able to paint on the brown in less than a half hour). So the next step for this piece was to paint the bottom coat of paint, which is the paint that you want to peak through after distressing. I choose classic dark brown. Painted two smooth coats, allowing drying time in between.
After the two coats of brown have had time to dry paint on the top coat. I choose a light pink. Now you want to let this all dry overnight before you start to distress it.
Then comes the "fun" part and quite the exercise too. DISTRESS IT! I suggest doing it by hand. It is time consuming but you won't end up doing too much and having to paint again. Stick to corners and ares that would naturally get beat up the most.
Now you stain it which acts as your sealer. I used a dark brown stain, waiting five minutes and whipped it off. If you want it to be darker you can wait longer to whip it off or just do a second coat.
YOUR DONE! Just put the hardware back on when the furniture is dry and there you go. For this desk, I sprayed the hardware with a little black spray paint because they were too bright, but you can leave them as is or spray them any color you want.
