The Wood Paneling Debate

July 27, 2011 by Faye
Filed under: Ben, Home Decor Ideas, Inspiration

Since moving into our 1940′s cottage style home, Ben and I have always disagreed about our living room’s wood paneling. We have that “real” wood paneling that I believe is knotty pine, that a previous owner thought was really fancy and had it installed in both the living room and one of our bedrooms. Ben loves it and thinks it is really fun and vintage. I hate it and how dark it makes our living room. I seriously want to paint over it and Ben hates that idea. Since it is our house and not just my house, I would like for us to make the decision together but we are stuck in a wood paneling debate for real.

I don’t quite get why guys love wood paneling so much and hate the idea of painting it. Every time we have someone new over to our house, 9 times out of 10 if that person is a guy he will say something like “man i love the wood paneling in here” or “wood paneling, Nice!” If that person happens to be a female, they will usually make a comment like “have you thought about painting the wood paneling?” To which my normal reply is “Everyday of my life.”

So in order to encourage Ben to at least think about painting our wood paneling, I have decided to share a couple photos.

Side Note: While searching through Google images for Wood Paneling, more than a couple of the listings were from a website called UglyHousePhotos.com which I feel proves my point.

Painted Wood Paneling via Houzz

Pretty Painted Wood Paneling via Apartment Therapy

Awesome Before and After via I Still Love You

Painted Wood Paneling from Monica Wants It

Wish me luck in convincing Ben that we should paint our wood paneling!

In case you are interested in painting your wood paneling, Young House Love has a great tutorial.

Also this post “Why Do Men Fear Painting Wood?” over on Hue is pretty funny.

by Selena Faye

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Comments

8 Comments on The Wood Paneling Debate

Cassondra
on Wed, Jul 27th 2011 @ 8:52 pm

I totally get where you are coming from about the darkness. There is absolutely no denying that it sucks the light out of a space. I think everyone gets caught in this can’t paint wood thing in the same way they can’t paint brick. It seems like a sin because the material itself is inherently beautiful. If your room has enough natural light and tons of windows, it may be able to support the dark wood, but it never seems to work out that way. Maybe compromise by striping it and staining with a light stain color. This would, of course, be extremely labor intensive, but it may serve both purposes by lightening up the space, yet leaving the wood grain visible. It would lend itself to a more cottage like feel and make for an interesting weekend project as well. I’ll see if I can find some pics of what I am thinking of. Good luck gal.

Reply
- Faye
  on Fri, Jul 29th 2011 @ 8:40 am
  
  Thanks for the awesome comment. I have thought about staining it a light green or blue but that also might look horrible. We do have a lot of natural light in our living room but because we live on a busy street, we usually have the curtains closed. Its whatever, I have enough projects that I am currently working on to keep me busy until we decide what we are going to do.
  
  Reply
Amanda
on Wed, Jul 27th 2011 @ 8:53 pm

Okay. So I love wood paneling if it is right. There is cheep crap that we had in our house in Korea then there was the ballin stuff in my retro basement in CT. Either way don’t paint it. That is just ugly. If you want to cover it up with paint, I suggest the wallpaper you cover the paneling with then paint. It gives your wall the smooth look you crave and completely hides any trace of wood paneling.
My suggestion – Compromise, leave one room, paint/wallpaper the other.

Reply
- Faye
  on Fri, Jul 29th 2011 @ 8:43 am
  
  Hi Amanda, thanks for commenting. We do have the “ballin stuff” which is as retro as you can get and since our house has a vintage feel, it does seem to fit but I just hate how it feels like we are always camping. Also we already painted the craft room/music room which is the other room with wood paneling and it was not fun. So anyways, I guess you will just have to come visit and see it for yourself
  
  Reply
erika
on Tue, Sep 6th 2011 @ 4:15 pm

I have just moved into an apt and have the wood paneling in the room and was actually thinking of replacing it with drywall but i think i’m inspired by this it looks very lovely i’m just scared of messing it up

Reply
- Faye
  on Tue, Sep 6th 2011 @ 4:59 pm
  
  Thanks for saying mine looks lovely, I appreciate the compliment. You could try painting it. Who knows, it might looks awesome.
  
  Reply
mary
on Fri, Jul 20th 2012 @ 2:52 pm

i too have retro wood paneling in a 1950s era home. mine stops about two feet below the ceiling. i really debated painting it but i figure it has made it this far with no one touching it that maybe i should just leave it. i painted the wall above a really pretty green and the ceiling a very crisp white. i added very colorful pillows to a neutral sofa and some great artwork. my room does have lots of natural light so it doesnt seem dark at all. i get lots of compliments on the “cool retro” quality of the room and men more than women comment on the “awesome” real wood paneling. the problem with painting it is that once it is painted then it is done, you cant go back. think long and hard. retro style is IN now anyway. good luck.

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What to do about wood paneling? | A Bean Grows in Durham
on Sat, Nov 17th 2012 @ 11:28 am

[...] paneling pop up everywhere recently, such as this post on Apartment Therapy. There’s also this post from Faye Dodge Zombies. It works pretty well with that rustic, manly, living in a cabin in the [...]

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