Here is a better pic of the paneling:

and here is the inspiration:

also, if you had a house with this much wood (dark wood floors, dark wood paneling, dark window trim and baseboards), what color would you do for trim? I am considering us leaving trim/windows/beams natural color and painting paneling warm white... I just dont want to ruin the wood if its good wood, but I also want it to feel less cavelike. FWIW, there are TONS of windows. Almost no walls that aren't covered in windows. The kitchen will have no uppers, as the walls are all windows and opens to the dark wood walled living room.

Although it could be done, I'm going to discourage you from trying to sand this wood given your lack of knowledge (not a criticism, just an issue for a novice do-it-yourselfer). It would be a huge amount of work because it's quite difficult and time consuming to try to get into all the nooks, crannies, and corners of the molding and other details. If it didn't get evenly sanded, it could be blotchy when refinished, and dark in the areas you couldn't sand as well. You might be able to strip the finish with chemicals, but that would also be a lot of work and mess, and could also leave the wood blotchy (although there are ways to deal with this depending on how complete the removal of the old finish is and whether the old finish penetrated the wood surface evenly).

Finally, it's hard to tell what kind of wood it is from the somewhat fuzzy pictures, and whether it has been stained or whether the finish/wood simply has simply aged to a dark color. Given the age of the home, it is probably a high quality, old growth wood, and it would be a shame to paint over it. If you still think you want to change the appearance, I suggest you pick an area of the house to experiment on where you are least concerned about the result. This could give you an idea of how difficult (or not) this project would be for you, and whether you are ok with the result if it doesn't come out quite as you pictured it.

thank you kudzu9 - I would NOT be doing any of the work. I should have clarified. We will begin interviewing contractors once we close on the house. We would probably not even do painting work as my husband did a huge renovation on our old home and he is pretty burnt out on DIY stuff and I am not skilled + have three small kids to care for (we moved across the country for job otherwise we would have stayed in that house!).

I'm more just wondering if this is good wood? I have read about bad wood that should be painted and good hardwoods that shouldn't and also if it could look like the inspiration, rather than super dark/cherry looking. I think it's all stained.

thank you again for your advice!

Unless you can provide some sharp and closeup photos, I'm just guessing. However, if that is original to the house, it is probably very good quality wood, possibly hardwood, or even valuable softwood, that would be hugely expensive to install in a house today. My last house was built about 60 years ago and, when I was remodeling, even the old studs I took out of the walls were furniture grade lumber. Any competent contractor should be able to identify the species and quality of your wood, how it was finished, and what can be done to it now. Good luck. Please report back when you find out more.

Here is a better picture, this is the dining room (as we were walking the house before putting in offer), all of the bedrooms , the living room, hallways & entry look like this.It's quite overwhelming... I hate the orange color.

That's knotty pine. Probably with amber shellac. They are 1x6 tongue and groove boards. Not something to refinish once it's installed, and it probably would be blotchy if it were lightened, anyway.

Thanks Homebound,
So painting them or keeping them as is, are my only options? Bummer, because I'm definitely not keeping then that orange color. I was hoping for a medium brown.

Depending on the state of the rest of the house (do you have an exterior shot and/or the exact age?), this kind of 1950's/1960's knotty pine is not, technically, a really high-quality wood. I wouldn't cry if you painted it -- as opposed to painting American Chestnut paneling from the turn of the century, which would indeed be a crime. There appear to be things like hot-air registers in the wall, which would date the house to the 60's era.

Your floors, by the way, look gorgeous!

In truth, knotty pine t&g is probably better painted than re-finished; even if you took off all the ambered shellac/finish, the best you'll get is a very yellow piney color which might not be your ideal, either. Pine -- esp. stripped pine -- is fairly hard to stain any color that would eliminate the yellow entirely.

Another possibility is to check out whether the paneling is covering up actual plaster or drywall, in which case it might be best -- and cheapest -- removed entirely and stored, keeping the beams and trim as accents. Then you could mend the walls to recreate the smooth plaster of your inspiration pic. This would achieve the goal of lightening things up AND adhere to responsible historical restorability for future residents, should anyone ever want to put the paneling back up.

On the other hand, there seems to be a difference between the paneling shown in that last (dining room?) photo and the paneling/built-ins with the child sitting on them in an earlier photo. When there are built-ins or closets that are integral to the paneling it might be a shame to paint.

But I can certainly empathize with the wood-overload you're experiencing; I live in a Craftsman that's got 4' cypress wainscoting in the entire house and though I'd never dream of painting or refinishing it, it does sometimes feel slightly overpowering.

Hopefully you can come to some kind of happy medium. Enjoy!

Thank you circus peanut!!

This is so good to hear.
It was built in 1939, but has had tons of additions/changes (unfortunately). I'm not sure if this wood paneling was added but now that I look at the living room pics compared to dining room, the wood looks different in the built ins like you said. They don't have the knots like dining room does. My hope is that we can refinish the built ins to match the floors (the floors are less orange) and keep the living room wood in tact, but my husband wants to paint everything else except the beams/stairs. He says to just think of it as drywall and paint how I like, but after reading this forum I dont want to completely ruin great wood if we have it (just not sure how to tell what's old beautiful wood and what's new crap?)

The other issue is that the seller lives next door and I believe he raised his family in this house and did a lot of the work. I would hate to paint something that he might see :/ that would be tough. He's very old. The house has never been sold until now.

I'm not a huge knotty pine paneling fan, but I am very lazy.

So the other thing you could do is just try all white furniture and fixtures and window treatments everywhere to kind of go with the old cottage look, to see if that would lighten it up enough for you.

Lots of inspiration pics on Houzz, here are a few:

[Traditional Living Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2107) by East Lyme Interior Designers & Decorators Judy Cook Interiors, LLC

[Rustic Living Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/rustic-living-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_718~s_2111) by Shallotte Home Builders Blue Sky Building Company

[Rustic Bathroom[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/rustic-bathroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_712~s_2111) by Los Angeles Design-Build Firms KellyBaron

I'm looking at a chalet done floor to ceiling in knotty pine and have been thinking about ways to lighten it up. One thing I saw Sarah Richardson recommend was using an opaque white stain to "whitewash" - maybe something with a grey or green tone to avoid that pink whitewashed look. I have never tried such a thing and don't know if I'd have the courage to.

Lovely home no matter what you do! The seller will be heartbroken that you painted wood, but it's your house now. Seems to be closely correlated with the Y chromosome.

@robotropolis -

That is definitely what I'm thinking for the living room. The living room opens up to what will be the kitchen (we are moving it from the horrible spot it's in now) and that space is a former sunroom, so it's all white wood ceilings and white walls w/ tons of windows. I think if the living room has some wood + light couch + light fireplace (it's stone) it will look good. I am anxious to move in and start figuring everything out in person.

Thanks for your advice!

carekip-
I'm wondering if you have more than one kind of wood. The very first shot you posted, though fuzzy. appears to be clear rather than knotty. The wood in the second photo with the child in it may or may not be knotty pine (again, too blurry). The clearer photo you posted on May 21 with two adults in it is definitely knotty pine. Whatever it is, it appears to be solid wood, not the crappy 1/4" thick plywood panels made to look like paneling. If they were just that paneling, I'd say you should demo them because you would likely have sheetrock or plaster underneath. However, if they are solid wood, it's highly likely that you have bare studs underneath.

We had 3/4" t&g pine paneling on one wall of our dining room of the house we bought about a year ago. Our house was built in 1920, but there appears to have been a 1940 remodel and this was part of it. Here's a photo:

I, too, am no fan of orange wood, so I tore out the cabinet and wall. But it was good, solid wood, so I have repurposed it throughout the house, both as baseboards and as cabinet drawer box fronts and backs. To do so, I sanded off the finish and either painted white (baseboards) or applied Minwax Polyshades in Classic Oak. Here's how the coloring looks on it, a lot more golden:

So bottom line: it can be refinished differently, but keep in mind that I didn't sand the grooves. I trimmed off the boards on a table saw so I was just sanding flat stuff.

This post was edited by weedyacres on Thu, May 22, 14 at 14:35