Painting wood paneling

Some former owner of our house loved wood paneling. They paneled virtually every wall of the basement. Let’s not judge — it was the Sixties. Or maybe the Seventies. Could have been the Eighties.

Anyway, because the basement has only window wells, it doesn’t get a lot of light anyway, so all that dark wood paneling made it seem a little grim. And a little like the Eighties.

The best solution would have been to tear out all the paneling and put up drywall. But we had other priorities and the basement is not the most important space. So we decided to paint enough of the paneling to lighten things up and make the main room tolerable for now. I want to share a few tips for painting paneling.

As in all painting, the most important thing is preparation. I did these steps at the beginning:

• First, I nailed down any loose edges of the paneling, either hammering protruding nails or pounding new ones. I tapped the nails below the paneling surface with a nail set like this one.
• Next, I patched the paneling seams. I wanted a smooth surface that looked like a wall, though some people want paneling elements like wood grain to show through. There’s no particular magic to covering the seams; I used a putty knife, joint compound, and a sanding sponge just as I would on drywall.
• Finally, I lightly sanded all the paneling. This will knock down any small imperfections and scuff up the surface to receive the primer. Then I wiped everything down with a damp cloth.

Our kind of paneling had a glossy varnish that didn’t seem like a good surface for paint to adhere. I’ve heard that you can sand all the finish down to the bare wood, but . . . come on. I went to Sherwin-Williams and they recommended their Extreme Bond Primer. It’s supposed to get all kinds of untrustworthy surfaces ready to paint, including tile, glass, and plastic. Sherwin-Williams products are expensive but I did manage to buy everything during one of their periodic sales.

Of course you can’t exactly unpaint the paneling once you paint it. I had a scrap piece so I did the binding primer and paint on that first to make sure everything would work as I expected.

The test piece turned out okay, so I lightly sanded the walls to scuff them up a bit, then put on a coat of the bonding primer. I didn’t need perfectly even coverage, just a base for the paint. Finally I did two coats of paint.

When everything was dry (okay, maybe a month later) I caulked a few gaps along edges and corners where the paneling didn’t meet cleanly. The result isn’t a major overhaul, but it lightened up the room and made us feel okay about setting up the space.

The other side of the basement has a different kind of paneling that is even darker and more dated. We’re hoping to tear that out and put up drywall. Someday!

UPDATE: Six months later . . .

The painted paneling still looks pretty good. However, I’ve noticed hairline cracks along several of the paneling seams that I tried to patch and smooth over. They are hard to see but of course not quite what I was hoping for. The paneling that I painted was the thin, somewhat flexible variety that is ubiquitous in old Midwestern basements. Between kids playing basement soccer and our lovely Wisconsin winters, I think the surfaces had too much movement to be stable on the wall. A thicker, more solid paneling might have held up without cracks. I’m going to leave it for now, not look too closely, and hope for a better solution down the road.