How to Paint a Piano with a Laminate Finish

My husband and I have been keeping our eyes out on Craigslist for a free piano for a few months now.  People do give them away for free regularly, but often it's because there's quite a bit wrong with them.  In fact, it had been 2 months since I last saw a "good" one, and I had therefore stopped my daily Craigslist check.  

But my husband hadn't.  He had been checking every day (without my knowing), and one evening he announced that he had piano for me!  We rented a truck and borrowed the hands of a few guy friends, and before I knew it, I had a piano in my house!  

The only problem was it looked like this :

Pretty sad looking, huh?

Not to worry, though, it's now a beautiful yellow piano!  

I went to Home Depot and bought 1 quart of Behr paint & primer in one.  I also bought sand paper because I was, of course, going to need to do some sanding on this piece.  

BUT.  Then I got home and started to sand and quickly realized that the finish on the piano was NOT real wood...it was LAMINATE!  Ahh!  I really don't know why I didn't even think of that before hand.  

So, the issue with a laminate finish is that you can't sand it or you'll ruin it, and you HAVE to prime it because paint will not stick to that glossy surface.  Since I had already bought my paint, and it was a paint/primer combo, I decided to test it on a portion of the piano to see if it would work.  I was SOOOOO excited when it stuck wonderfully!  I went ahead and painted the rest.  

This piano, using that quart of paint/primer combo, took about 3 full coats of paint.  Then, I used my Varathane, no odor, water based, fast drying semi gloss polyurethane to seal it (It's this, but I used semi-gloss).  I only did one coat of it since I don't anticipate that it will get heavy use like my kitchen table.  Touching hands?  Yes.  Heavy banging on the paint surfaces?  No.  (Side note: I used about 2/3 of the quart of paint)

And finally, I used some leftover "outdoor" fabric and a staple gun to recover the bench.  I left the legs/frame as they were, though.  

The piano still needs it's legs finished (see the wood pieces on the bottom), as they are missing, and the panel under the piano is missing, too.  I'm not sure what I'll do about that.  

But I have a piano!!!!  I've started to teach my kids how to play, and they absolutely love it!