My dining room has the old fashioned, 1970’s style, wood paneling on half the wall. You know the type, made from laminated photographs of real wood, dark, cheap, and dated. One of the most common wall treatments found in homes built in the mid-century modern style. Recently we gave our dining room a new looked with painted wood paneling instead.
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When we purchased our home this room had pink grapevine wallpaper and borders all around. And heavy ornate and frilly looking drapery. As you can see I have already painted the upper portion of the walls in a nicer shade of orange.
Looking back I really think my attempt at a gallery wall just looks messy and cluttered.
This room just has too much brown.
My last two houses both were built in the 1970’s as well and I had rooms full of this wood paneling – AND I grew up with it. My parent’s house still has this same wood paneling in about four rooms. I guess you can tell that it is not my favorite wall treatment.
In my last two houses, I spent weeks sanding down and painting the wood paneling before we moved in. However , painting wood paneling is definitely an improvement on a room.
When I started working on our dining room, I had completely blocked out of my mind was the amount of work and time it takes to paint wood paneling. It took three days for me to sand, prime, and paint just the four half paneled walls of the dining room.
After sanding down the walls with my new orbit sander (a recent gift from my husband) I taped off the walls and put the first coat of primer on the wall. The walls above the paneling were painted the first year we moved in to the house in Behr Adventure Orange.
I love orange decor and wanted a more modern look for the dining room. When we moved it the walls were off white with PINK grapevine wallpaper border above the paneling. THAT had to go! And I like the Adventure Orange color, but I was always concerned that if I painted the paneling a lighter color that the room would look like the UT football player’s jerseys. And I was right. The Adventure Orange had to go too.
If you have never painted paneling before, be prepared to paint the dark grooves at least 4 times with primer to hide them beneath the new lighter paint color. That is a lot of time to go around the room with a brush going up and down. A full wall will take even more time. I was able to get by with only 2 coats of primer on the panels themselves. So before I even get to the new paint color, I have been painting around the walls already 6 times.
I was not planning on changing the upper color of the room, but UT jersey is not the look I was going for. So I went back to Home Depot and purchased a warmer, brown toned orange. My job went from another two coats of paint on the paneling, to a coat of primer on the orange, and then four coats of paint in the new color. Over all , I painted these walls nearly ten times.
The paint color we used on the lower half was a warm off-white color called Divine Pleasure and the upper color is Mulling Spice. I just love the final results compared to the original dark wood paneling.
The room just seems to have a more relaxed and inviting atmosphere, and the Mulled Spice color works so much better with the dark color of the trim on the doors and windows.
I have a whole house of this same color of trim and baseboards and until I can afford to change out all of my louvered closet doors and hollow core doors in the same color, the trim stays untouched.
I have a feeling this room will be changing even more on the next couple of years as we update the rooms around it. Come back often for more updates.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
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