Do It Yourself Monday - Old Wood Paneling….Remove it, Paint it? What?

My niece and her husband are about to purchase their first home. It’s a darling, well kept; home built in the 60’s, decorated in the 70’s and has never been updated since. Three rooms, including the master bedroom are paneled.  The dark wood paneling gives a home a dated, older look. If you’re going to put your house up for sale and you have paneling…..get rid of it. It will be much more appealing to buyers if you do and it will increase your chances of a quick sale. Not all buyers can see a house’s potential and could leave your open house thinking it looks too old/outdated and may feel it needs more work than they are willing to do.

 We, unfortunately, are still faced with the ongoing dilemma of what to do with the old dark wood paneling that we thought was so “sharp” in 1970’s. Well I’ve dealt with it in a few different ways and it wasn’t the end of the world.

1.)    You can remove it…BUT do you know what is under it? Was the paneling put up because it looked cool? Or to cover some gnarly walls? Removing the paneling could get you into some major wall repairs or replacing the dry wall altogether. I went with this method one time and found only slightly damaged walls underneath. I was able to patch them and I used textured paint to help hide the imperfections. We do not all get that lucky though.

2.)    You can clean it, prime it and paint it BUT the groves will show….can you live with that? I filled the groves with joint compound one time and painted but it was a bit of a pain and I only had a very small section to do.  A large room would be quite an undertaking.

Last year, I decorated a house that had high quality, very, very dark wood paneling in the family room in the basement.  I opted to prime and paint it and it came out beautifully. It brightened the family room up and gave it an entirely different look. Since it was in a basement, a rather large basement, It seemed like a huge expanse of wall so I experimented a little and painted stripes between the grooves on a section of the wall to break it up a little. See before and after pictures on my website www.reutershomedesigns.com

3.)    The third option is to purchase a paintable wall covering made especially for covering paneling. It is quicker and easier BUT it is also pretty pricey but hey re-dry walling isn’t exactly cheap either. I’ve never tried it but my niece has opted for this method and I will be helping her with it so I’ll be sure to blog about it when it’s completed.

Whatever method you go with, you will be happy you did. It will make your rooms brighter and give it a whole new fresh look. 

Catch my blog next Monday on installing ceramic tile.