One of the things we are doing to prepare to put our house on the market is to update the very dated wall paneling in our lower level.
This stuff is nasty. It’s not even real wood. It’s a shiny, plasticy, fake version of wood that has seen better days since it was first installed sometime in the late 60’s.
Here is a before picture, mid-remodel and pretty messy. Sorry.
I did this section of our basement about a year ago and it has held up very well, despite daily use. There hasn’t been any peeling or chipping.
I will tell you that it is a giant pain in the you-know-where.
There are many ways you can go about painting over paneling, but a lot of them involve pretty nasty chemicals and strippers. I was pregnant and I had two toddlers in the house when I started this project, so those methods were quickly crossed off my list. This is the method I used.
Step 1: Wipe down the walls with a damp rag to remove any dust or residue.
Step 2: Use a high quality zero VOC adhesion primer. I used the Olympic brand from Lowes. Unfortunately, I found that I had to use a paint brush for this entire process because, no matter what kind of roller I tried, it either splattered or wouldn’t get into the spaces in between the panels. Don’t be scared because the first coat looks terrible. The most important thing is to get the cracks between the walls completely covered. Some people caulk the cracks and sand them for the look of a flat wall, but I actually like the texture of the paneled look. (Plus, I’m lazy.)
The Olympic primer worked great but I found that I had to wait at least 24 hours in between coats or else it would start to clump and peel off the wall while I was applying the second coat.
Step 3: After 24 hours, apply the second coat
Step 4: Wait another day and apply the 3rd coat
Step 5: Paint. It took me three coats of primer and 3 coats of paint until I was satisfied.
I’ve been working all weekend on the paneling in the rest of our lower level. I hope whoever buys this house appreciates all of this work. I wish I would have sucked it up and done this 3 years ago so that our own family could have enjoyed a prettier space.
C’est la vie.
I think it’s 100% prettier than it was before.
Wow, what an incredible makeover. Looks amazing. Good work! 🙂
You said you applied 1st coat of primer with brush did you have to do every coat with brush or after 1st were you able to use a roller
Thanks for your question, Sondra! We actually did every coat with a brush. Towards the end, we started rolling the paint on to make the process faster, then brushing it in with a paintbrush to get the coverage to be consistent. We found that we got a lot of drips and splatters on this nasty plastic paneling. It did not absorb the paint at all, so the roller applied too much at a time. The coats needed to be very thin.
Should we sand it before we do anything. I have this fake wood paneling too and starting my first room tonight! Eeek.
I didn’t. I did wipe everything with a damp rag to get the dust off first, but I didn’t sand anything. As long as you have a good primer made for this type of application, you don’t have to. We have since moved to a different house, but the first area of panelling in the basement that I did lasted for years without ever peeling.