How to paint over paneling

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Liz342

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MY husband and I are considering buying a home that has quite a bit of paneling in it which I hate. We are planning on drywalling eventually but I was wondering how easy it would be to paint the paneling white for right now. It is the true dark paneling, not the knotty pine kind. Would this be easy to do? Would we need a primer under the paint?
 
I believe you will need a primer. Our house has some painted over paneling, and it looks fine. I suppose if it's glossy you'd need to sand, but ours is rough enough that paint would probably stick just fine.
 
Welcome Liz:
I would lightly sand the paneling with a random orbital sander and 120 grit sandpaper. Just a light sanding to break the sruface gloss, wipe the surface clean with a tack rag and prime with Kilz 2 to seal the color in. Then paint with a semi-gloss latex enamel.
Glenn
 
Yes, you can paint it. The tips above are good ones. Lightly sand, clean, prime, paint. Only thing I personally disagree with is using semi-gloss. The flatter the paint the less any surface irregularities will be apparent. I would go with a quality flat or matte paint. That's just me though. No harm in semi.

Before you go to the trouble check and see if the paneling was installed over drywall or plaster. You may be in luck and you can just pull it off, patch the walls and then paint.

Also - Paneling often has a texture to it. Painting wont cover the texture. I have seen people use joint compound to fill in grooves in paneling before painting. Me, I would just remove it and only use paint as a quick stop gap.

Good luck - Post some before and after pictures if you can and let us know if you need any more help.
 
If you don't like the mess of sanding, I understand that a fairly strong mixture of TSP will remove the gloss. I'd also go w/a flat paint over a layer of kilz2.
 
What I have always done is 1ST I clean the paneling with a lite mix of warm water and tsp then I sand with 120 grit paper, vacuum well and tack cloth all the sanded surfaces then 1 - 2 coats primer and 2 coats low luster,Matte finish. I always use Ben Moore paints.:D
 
I havent seen ya fer a while. I would get a 3" putty knife, and a box of light joint topping compound, Oh ya, from the big box store. Fill in the lines of panels. Then the people in the wall paper department can direct you to some special paper to cover paneling. They might try to tell ya you dont need ta fill dem der lines in panel, but fill them first, I have seen 5 yrs after:eek: If you fill lines, wait to dry, then paper, people will never know there is paneling under there. Seen it, try ity, you'll like it! Good luck....
 
We just ripped out some wood panels in a house where they had nailed the panels to the old Sheetrock (small nails, lots of them), take a peak behind one of the panels and see what is behind it.
 
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