Category Archives: Fireplace Room
How to Paint over Wood Paneling: Part 1
Our house was built in 1978 and the owners did an entire room in wood paneling. I’m sure it was great back then, but it’s out of date now and makes the room very dark. If you remember from this post about using Sander Deglosser to “sand without sanding,” then you know we pretreated our test area with it, hoping to avoid manual sanding.
To apply the Sander Deglosser, I poured the chemical on an old t-shirt and applied it to the wall in a circular motion. The liquid is thin and applies easily to the wall. When it dries, the wall is dull and loses its sheen. This is a chemical, so wear gloves while you’re applying it and keep pets and kids away from the area until it is dry. The bottle reads that it should be dry within ten minutes, but I found the paneling needed about an hour to be dry to the touch. Here’s a before pic of the area (with a test patch of paint in the middle, and Sanding Deglosser applied):
This week I went a step further and edged out the area with the same Behr Paint and Primer in Decorator White that we used in the game room. Normally I use the Shurline Edger, but I felt brave and went to work with just a paint brush. I didn’t even use painter’s tape. That stuff is expensive! A great trick I learned is to wipe off any “oops” spots with baby wipes! It perfectly removes the paint. As you can see, I removed the outlet, light switch and doorbell covers instead of edging around them. I also painted the grooves between the panels because I thought a roller might have a tough time getting in there. Here’s a picture after edging:
The first coat of paint went on smoothly with a small roller, just like I was painting a regular wall. I used a paint brush for the areas too narrow for the roller. We will add one more coat, but here’s a pic after the first coat:
Sanding…without sanding?
That’s right. I went to Home Depot to get paint for our wood paneling. After talking to the paint department associate about what we were going to undertake, she suggested this product:
It’s about $6.50 a bottle and preps surfaces for painting that would normally need sanding or an oil based primer. It does say that for heavily soiled surfaces to use a TSP cleaner before applying this stuff.
I used an old tshirt and a circular motion to apply it to a section of the wood paneling between the fireplace room and the kitchen. It doesn’t take much of the product to coat a large area.
At first I did a small spot and then put a layer of paint over it to see how well it did. That’s the white spot you see right in the middle.
The deglosser removes the sheen and gives the wood a groovy feeling, like it would if you sanded. On the bottle it says it takes about 10 minutes to dry, but I thought it took at least 30 minutes to be completely dry. It does have a mild chemical smell, but not bad.
It is a chemical, so don’t apply this to the walls if you have kids running around. I applied it to this whole section during naptime.
Painting to come soon!
