<p>We live in a 43 year old home that was originally built very well. It’s traditional style, and the original owners put in alot of beautiful wood work in all the rooms, very nice “pecan” color and high quality. I love it. However, the family room is paneled. It’s a very expensive paneling, but it looks dated of course. We’ve lived there almost 20 years, and have carpet throughout the house other than the foyer and kitchen. There are lots of windows and one wall is all fireplace brick and bookshelves. There really is only one major wall with most of the paneling, and we keep our sofa on that wall. </p>
<p>Anyway, we are seriously considering having wood floors put in all the house. There is no way I would put wood floors in this room with the paneling…it would just be so dark and look like a cabin. I would prefer drywall, but the room has tons of beautiful wood moulding and door frames that would have to be taken off and i just don’t know if I want to take the chance of that being broken, etc. </p>
<p>Many people in our neighborhood have painted their paneled family rooms. It’s never been a favorite look of mine in a traditional house…especially when the grooves are not separated by the same width. I love the look in cottages, though.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve been reading that you can fill in the grooves with drywall mud caulk and paint the paneling and it looks like drywall. But you have to be careful what you use so the caulk doesn’t chip out when the paneling moves. I don’t know…seems like alot of work. Of course the easiest thing to do is just paint it. Just wondered what everyone thought of that look. I suppose since most of the room doesn’t have alot of the paneling, just that one wall, it wouldn’t overtake the room.</p>
<p>I don’t know. I just don’t want any brown at all on the walls if we have wood flooring. It is a darker room in the house anyway. Right now we have light beige carpet with beige leather furniture that helps keep it “lighter” in the room.</p>
<p>In the 80’s, I bought a little house that had paneling in the kitchen breakfast area. It was already painted yellow. Everything in the whole house was painted yellow. I filled the grooves in this paneling with drywall mud and then put wallpaper over it. I had to fill it twice because drywall stuff shrinks as it dries. I knew this going in, but it did not take long and gave a smooth surface for the wallpaper.</p>
<p>In my current home, the previous owners had enclosed the back porch and put cheap, ugly paneling on the walls. I painted it as it was (without filling the grooves) and I like it a lot. In fact, this whole house had a lot of stained trim and wainscoting, which I have now painted white. It also had a lot of wallpaper, which I have removed. Funny how trends come and go.</p>
<p>My parent’s house had nice pecan paneling in the living room. When they remodeled some years ago, they painted the paneling an off white. I like the look of painted paneling. </p>
<p>My current house had paneling that the prior owner painted over in our informal family room and I love it. the color is a very warm offwhite and they kept the pecan doors. It looks almost cottage-y. I cannot tell you why this looks so much better than others I have seen. Although this paneling was of various widths…maybe that is it?</p>
<p>I’m going to share with you a couple of “painting paneling” links I have on my Pinterest - you can go on Pinterest and find many more if you search “painting paneling” - a couple of the transformations look SO good IMO - and the one link is to a good explanation of the process of painting:</p>
<p>We painted the paneling at our lake house in the UP…and I liked it. Very Cape Cod cottage-y. Just be sure to treat the paneling first so the paint sticks. </p>
<p>I think the paneling must be real wood, it is not in sheets at all. The grooves seem to be wider and dark. It really is beautiful paneling, but it does look so 1972. I almost feel guilty painting it, but can’t have it with wood floors. LIke I said I like the look of painted wood better in a cottage, or in a more casual room. This room is quite traditional. Huge brick fireplace hearth with built in bookcases to one side. Beautiful molding and beams that have molding on the ceiling. Built in Bar and floor to ceiling shelves with doors. All the wood in the same color. I will definitely take and look at these links and see if it would look okay. I want the warm off-white discussed above and my paneling has various widths, too. Abasket…that 2nd link looks very similar to mine in color and you can see the dark grooves that I just discussed. I really like the finished product…maybe this would be just fine! Thanks.</p>
<p>My husband loves natural wood - even if it’s in paneling! Our basement was SURROUNDED in real wood knotty pine paneling. A few years ago we decided to refinish the space into an extra family-type room. He could NOT get over the fact that I wanted to paint that natural wood! But paint we did and it the entire room looks SO much better now. They are your walls to look at and enjoy - while you may prefer dry wall over the paneling, if replacing is not likely to happen, it’s better a change that IS do-able. Maybe call in a couple of tried and true painters and ask them their opinion. If the walls are less noticeable (the wood is probably VERY noticeable), the other features of the room - the fireplace, furniture, windows, etc. will be MORE noticeable. </p>
<p>That does seem very sad to paint it. We had the same cheesy panelling in our house as that first link in post #6. Some of it we removed the rest we painted white and it looks sooo much better. But I’d seriously give some thought to taking it down and putting up drywall. Filling in all the grooves, just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Plaster and wood don’t react to temperature and humidity the same way. Hiding under wallpaper like musicmom did might work, though it would worry me how long it would last. Obviously she hasn’t had any problems. Have you considered pickling it so it’s lighter? You can see how it looks with wood floors here: <a href=“http://www.houzz.com/pickled-wood-paneling”>http://www.houzz.com/pickled-wood-paneling</a></p>
<p>Yes, I had thought of that…but I still think it would be too dark. This particular room is the darkest room of our house. Watch…wood paneling will be back in style after we paint it.</p>
<p>Yes, I think I’ll skip the grooves. Although DH is a good painter, I think I will push to have a professional since I don’t want to paint all the moulding and I want it done perfect! </p>
<p>The problem is the moulding (how is this spelled properly anyway) is placed over the paneling and we have alot of it. Not sure what the width of that is at the bottom, probably an 1/8 of an inch. We don’t want to take off the moulding and because of the width at the bottom of it, don’t want to just place something over the paneling without that. Did all of that make sense? Not sure it did.</p>
<p>There is a special heavy-duty wallpaper called wall liner that is supposed to be a good cover for paneling. The display at the home improvement center claimed you could paint it, but I might consider a modern light colored wallpaper on top.
If you changed your mind, you could take it off and still have your paneling.</p>