What Can You Do With Wooden Walls?

Paint

• When painting wooden walls, you might as well paint them a bright and fun color. A rich yellow, a bright blue or even a regal purple will go a long way toward helping you forget what the walls looked like before. Use an oil-based primer before adding the color. If you don't want to completely cover up the wood, consider painting flowers, patterns, stripes, latticework or another design to complement the room's decor.

Shelves and Art

• Soften the starkness of wood walls by covering them with painted shelves filled with books, photos or that collection of plates or glassware you've had packed away for years. Hang artwork, mirrors, quilts, rugs or tapestries to add new elements of texture and color to the wall while minimizing the texture and color of the paneling.

Specialty Finishes

• If completely covering the walls with a thick coat of paint is not the look you want, try one of the specialty finishes like whitewashing or pickling. Whitewashing is covering wood with a very thin coating of white water-based paint. Pickling uses a mixture of paint and bleach, rubbing off part of that paint so some of the wood texture shows through. If the wood walls are very dark, another technique is to strip the finish off the wood, or bleach it to lighten the color. This should only be done if the room is adequately ventilated during the process, as the bleach or stripper is highly toxic. Other specialty finishing techniques include antiquing, dragging, ragging and sponging.

Clean and Revive

• In some styles of homes, such as the Craftsman, wood paneling has never gone out of style. In others, the paneling just works with the existing decor of the room. In these cases, clean the wooden walls thoroughly with a commercial cleaner or wax designed for wood paneling to remove any greasy buildup. Wax them with a wood wax until they shine like new. Make the most of your wood-paneled walls by decorating the room in a style that complements that natural beauty.