Removing Paneling from Walls

[soozy87]

We are closing on our house on Monday! Yay! There are not too many major projects to take on with the house, but the one major thing we are doing is removing paneling, from pretty much every wall, and then having someone come in a skim coat the walls and then paint. We plan on removing the paneling ourselves to save a little bit of $$. Any tips for us?

[pitterwoo]

have a dumpster?

shouldn't be bad. have fun.

[auntie]

My friend's DIY boyfriend removed two walls of paneling in her home last year. Previous owner had used mastic and plenty of it. The sheets came off in small pieces and tore up the walls. He ended up re-rocking them. Fortunately, they had no windows only doors to retrim. (It was a hall)

When he did her basement the year prior, there was no wallboard underneath at all.

[Deleted]

Depends. Ours in our old place was liquid nailed so we had to replace the drywall behind it. You could have poorly done dw like pp stated, or you could have no drywall at all. I would start with a smaller room to see what you are dealing with.

[soozy87]

Yeah, that is the plan, we are going to start in one of the bedrooms.

If we decide against removing it, what if anything can be put over it? I mean, can you fill the cracks in with something? Or do you have to put drywall over all of it?

[pitterwoo]

I've heard of filling the cracks and painting over it. It seems like a fair amount of work to me for something that is still not going to look like a normal wall.

We had a room in our house that had paneling and then drywall wall added over top. I guess that could be done, but I get sketched out by having layers of stuff lurking behind the walls because in our case the walls kept getting moldy in the corners and when we ripped off the drywall and paneling we discovered that it was all moldy behind there.

[soozy87]

Jan 11, 2013 10:53:22 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

We have paneling as a wainscoting setup in our family room with chair rail and textured drywall above. After much debate, we chose just to prime & paint it (used SW Anonymous). I did not fill in the ridges. It works for us My sister rents a house that has pained paneling in her living room. It's a sage color. It looks pretty cute and is on with the style of the home.

I don't know if I would live with painted paneling forever (well, we might in the family room but its not much), but it isn't a bad option if you want to save up to hire it out etc. (I have no clue what that would cost - everyone I know has always done it themselves)

If you are skim coating/mudding etc, it is going to be quite dusty and is a really messy project.

We are planning on having someone come in and skim coat it and then paint probably about 3/4 of the rooms.

[auntie]

Jan 11, 2013 9:50:22 GMT -5 pitterwoo said:

I've heard of filling the cracks and painting over it. It seems like a fair amount of work to me for something that is still not going to look like a normal wall.

They used to sell a wallpaper like lining for covering paneling and bad walls. You could paper or paint over it.

I had real wood paneling in my old house; I just painted it rather as one would do hideous brick. It was an old sunporch and the stucco had a creepy swirly design so nobody would have commented on painted paneling. The stucco swirls looked like they'd been made with a peen. They were totally peen-sized. People always commented on that.

[kitty]

We had real wood paneling on two walls in our family room when we moved in. There was no sheetrock behind it at all so we had to start from scratch. We also had to drain and remove the baseboard heating in order to remove all of the paneling and baseboard. We considered painting it but it was rough hewn. I hated the rustic look and we figured in the end it would probably be just as much effort to take it down as it would be to sand it all smoother.

PIP of hideousness with sellers' stuff:

[sawyerthedestroyer]

We have paneling in our living room. The previous owner filled the cracks and painted it. We didn't like the color so we painted over that. It looks fine.

The home inspector and our handyman friend both said that it's unlikely that there's anything behind the paneling and if there is, it would be a lot of money to finish. It's just not worth it to us.

[niknik]

Our house is all paneling, nothing under. We painted it all and it looks ok. Can't afford to drywall whole house right now. Came out better than I thought.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Jan 11, 2013 11:46:14 GMT -5 auntie said:

Jan 11, 2013 9:50:22 GMT -5 pitterwoo said:

I've heard of filling the cracks and painting over it. It seems like a fair amount of work to me for something that is still not going to look like a normal wall.

They used to sell a wallpaper like lining for covering paneling and bad walls. You could paper or paint over it.

I had real wood paneling in my old house; I just painted it rather as one would do hideous brick. It was an old sunporch and the stucco had a creepy swirly design so nobody would have commented on painted paneling. The stucco swirls looked like they'd been made with a peen. They were totally peen-sized. People always commented on that.

Wait, people actually said something like "did you swirl the stucco with a penis?"