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Location: Sometimes Maryland, sometimes NoVA. Depends on the day of the week
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Best solution? Personally, I think its to rip it out and put up drywall (especially if its a basement and not insulated). But, I know thats not always possible for any number of reasons
Painting paneling works well I like a creamy white, it definitely brightens up a paneled room. Make sure you use a good, stain blocking primer first. This will prevent the wood from bleeding through to the paint.
We've removed some of the wood paneling in our house, but one room still has it. We definitely would prefer to have none at all. Our last house had a lot of wood paneling, too. It's easy to paint, though. As rubytue said, put a good primer on first. Then you can paint the walls any color you want. I used light colors on the walls I painted.
If you can't remove the paneling, you can fill in the grooves with joint compound and to get a smooth finish. Prime it and then you can use any color you like.
Location: Sometimes Maryland, sometimes NoVA. Depends on the day of the week
1,501 posts, read 11,756,863 times
Reputation: 1135
I was thinking about this a little while ago (is it sad that I was outside digging in the garden thinking about city-data?). When you said paneling, I assumed the 60s/70s dark wood cheap stuff. I have seen some nice paneling. Kind of like a nice beadboard or good quality individual boards. That looks nice with a nice, light stain.
Down if you can and hide it if you can't! Our family room was paneled when we bought our house 5 years ago. My first project was to tear it all down. I will admit that it was a bit of a nightmare. Ours had been "properly installed" when the house was built in 66 so the paneling was under all of the trim and under the fireplace mantel so I had to remove all trim and a pretty elaborate mantle to get all of the paneling out. The only place I couldn't get to it was behind a large built in bookcase/cabinet/hutch thing. It would have damaged the built in too much to try to remove it so I disguised it there by filling in the grooves with compound and sanding over it. Since the ceilings were in good shape I didn't "tape" the drywall where it met the ceiling because I knew I could never match the old texture so instead I caulked the joints at the ceiling and then went around the whole room with crown molding. The window and door trim had to be built out to match the thickness of the paneling so I bought strips of wood and glued and clamped them together on the back of the trim pieces, then sanded, rehung and painted it all. The whole room took me 6 months (on and off working on it), but its one of the projects I am most proud of!
If you paint it I would highly reccomend 3 coats of zinnser primer. put it on thick and give it plenty of time to dry. I have seen lots of paint jobs where a year of two later the wood bleads through. I did several paint jobs at my old house and found zinnser works the best for wood. It is expensive but worth it.
I have painted over paneling in many of the houses I remodeled. If you are refering to the 4x8 sheets of paneling that were so popular in the 60s and 70s, its a cinch. buy a can of Liquid Sand (deglosser) and just wipe it on with a rag (follow directions on can) and then after about 15minutes just give it a coat of primer and then paint. It looks fine, and you will barely notice that it is paneling. Much easier than tearing it off and replacing with sheetrock.
Good thread.Am considering a house that house it in the living room. Very dark. Not sure how properly installed it is. I was thinking of tearing it down to see if theres sheetrock behind it or if not install some. BUT hearing info on the compound to make it smooth isn't a bad idea either.
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I like a creamy white, it definitely brightens up a paneled room. Make sure you use a good, stain blocking primer first. This will prevent the wood from bleeding through to the paint.
