Bookshelf get

I successfully made the journey into Boston yesterday and secured myself an Ikea bookshelf for just five dollars. I found the place okay, it fit in my car okay, and the ad didn't turn out to be a ruse to lure murder victims to a secluded spot or whatever. :-)

The bookshelf itself looks unattractively cheap. I believe it to be particleboard, compressed wood sealed over with laminate. It is also that very pale bare-wood-looking color, which emphasizes its junkiness. It is, in my snobbish opinion, too ugly and certainly the wrong color either to put on stage or to keep in my house as is. So I've been doing some research on how to class it up a little. Apparently it seems the easiest way is to buy polyurethane spray paint that is supposed to change the color while leaving the grain still visible. If I can get it to work, it would look like darker wood, which would make it look nicer and less cheap. I think darker wood would be easier to match to any desk we're likely to find to borrow from the Brandeis set storage, and if I keep it myself it would go better with my furniture, a dark bedroom set and reddish-brown desk. It might not work, apparently laminate is hard to paint and while the polyurethane can work it's sometimes tough to use, but I paid five bucks for this thing and I don't love it anyway, so who cares if it doesn't come out.

If anyone has any experience re-coloring laminate furniture, feel free to throw in your two cents and give me advice. Or if anybody wants to help me with this little project, I'd welcome the assistance.