I love the texture of wood paneling (especially tongue and groove) but I would always paint it - even with just a white wash.

YES! I was waiting for someone to say this (instead of "paint it, paint it!"). If the room is otherwise updated and paneling is in good condition (Howard's Restor-a-Finish works wonders), the wood is a fabulously warm addition to contemporary design.

I *love* wood paneling!

In my experience, light is the biggest factor in whether wood paneling will look good. Even if the wood paneling is clean and well-maintained, without enough light it will just look dated.

I actually really like wood paneling in rooms that get a lot of light. My boyfriend had cheap, fake wood paneling in the bedroom of the group house he used to live in, and even that wasn't so bad-- with all-white furniture and bedding, it looked fresh and warm. With nice, real wood, I'm sure it would look even better.

Here are some really neat reclaimed panels http://trendhousedesign.com/beautiful-reclaimed-wood-paneling-by-bn/

hideous knotty pine is not back.

Ew. No. And I love the rustic look, but wood paneling just looks so dark and busy.

I dig wood paneling.

The lighter wood - lovely. Orange-toned, knotty pine - not so much.

My home is about 114 years old and has gorgeous milled wood paneled walls. This is NOT wood paneling from the 60s/70s. We haven't painted it (except where it was already painted and that's only one room) and it is stunning. At least I think so - http://shoedaydreams.blogspot.com/2010/12/silent-and-still.html and http://shoedaydreams.blogspot.com/2008/08/curl-up-with-good-book.html

I like the bleached look in picture # 6 - actually, before I read the captions, I thought it was a wallpaper that looked like wall paneling.

Nope. Trina Turk's home does it the best, because aside from what I'm sure is ridiculously expensive art and furniture, the wall itself isn't that obvious paneling look, with thin vertical stripes. It just looks like nice, expensive wood.

I like the horizontal panel so much more than the vertical.

"IT IS THE BEST FEATURE."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qELDX35BeSE

Personally, I can't get behind the look of wood paneling. We had it in the basement of our previous house, and it was pretty awful. Once we painted it, I really liked the texture it added, and the room looked almost twice as large. My parents have one wall with unfinished wood paneling in their living room, and I don't mind it (but it is mostly hidden behind 3 large book shelves). I think a little goes a long way as far as paneling is concerned.

I am just gearing up to tear out the faux wood paneling from my home office this spring. I cannot wait to paint the trim white and walls blue-gray and to get rid of the dark brown man cave look.

I stripped the yellow paint from my tongue and groove western red cedar, which is often mistaken as knotty pine, paneled den in my 1958 ranch. The bare wood is fantastic.

Omg NO WAY. Just moved out of a rental with an awful wood-paneled basement. I like living in the future and don't need more of that, thank you.

not a fan here, we purchased a house we are going to renovate.
The wood paneling in the bedrooms is the first thing we took out.
too dark for me.

No. No. No.

Oh lord, please pass the eye bleach, will you?

It's funny to me that, of these examples, the ones that I found MOST appealing were the ones that MOST deviated from my idea of what wood paneling is - which is cheap, usually darker, and many times not even real wood. A couple of these photos don't even read as "paneling" to my eye.

As the others have said, the room's light and the quality of the paneling are make-or-break factors in centering a room around it as a feature, but that's an awful lot of "ifs".

In my parents house, the kitchen was partially paneled with cheap, synthetic paneling that harkened back to the late 70s, paired with hideous dark dusty blue wallpaper with ducks on it. Wood paneling gives me PTSD about my repressed revulsion of my mother's kitchen, ha ha.

I am currently in a rental after relocating to Houston, TX that has a ton of wood panelling - in the kitchen and dining room. I literally sat down on the floor and cried when I first moved in- as I owned a home I adored in Boise, ID- but... honestly, those walls are growing on me. I actually really like them now. I'm just trying to inject color elsewhere and we get lots of light, which helps.

I just ... It's so ... I mean ...

BROWN. It's SO BROWN.

I just can't stand any of it. Not a single one of the examples pictured is appealing to me. There is just no way I could get behind leaving any paneling natural in a home where lived. I would be compelled to paint it immediately. The BROWN! my eyes!!

I bought a house with wood panelling in the family room. It took me all of two seconds to paint it a warm white, even though every male within a 20 mile radius could not fathom why I would do this. You decide....

http://www.no29design.com/2012/01/how-i-painted-over-wood-panelling-and.html

How can something be so ugly yet so cozy at the same time? It makes me think of going to my grandpa's cabin. But I am sure that pine paneling is from the 30s or 40's, and is actually nice quality.

I'd be interested to know how many of the people who commented in a positive manner regarding wood paneling, actually live in a wood paneled house...24 hours a day...7 days a week. It's not cool, chic, contemporary or anything but depressing. It sucks the light and color out of everything.

I always joke with my husband that one of these days I'm going to tear it down and slit my wrists with the wood shards.

Next apartment or house will not have a single panel of wood on the walls.

No. Absolutely not. There is no excuse for this. Please stop the insanity.

I don't hate wood paneling, but I don't like most of these examples. There are modern ways of doing wood paneling, just google "modern wood paneling" and you'll see far better examples. The best I can say about these examples are that the people are trying to make the most of what was already there, without actually changing it in any way.

As that selection of photos illustrates, all wood paneling is not created equal. Some looks grody, some looks great. Just like anything else, I guess. It seems like a good thing to me if we as a people lift the categorical ban against it and have it as an option in the mix.

It's been years since Alias went off the air, but I still daydream about the wood-y interior of her apartment. (house? not sure.)

noooooooooooooo!!!!

Wood paneling is appropriate if you have very large, very sunny windows that look out into the kind of woods where you might see, say, a wild bear. If not, I think it's best to just skip it.

No. Wrong. just wrong. my parents bought a house with this fugly wood paneling in '86. It wasnt cute then. Its not cute now.

There is nice wood paneling - made out of nice wood. And there is bad wood paneling - made out of cheap wood. And then the faux stuff which we won't mention.

Apples to oranges; and a lemon.

Not ever in MY house, thanks very much. Kill this "trend" now, before it spreads!

The people who knew how to use wood were the traditional Japanese. That version maybe I could live with.

I really like No. 10 - unfortunately most of the paneling I see is the awful, scary knotty pine that covers my laundry room.

There's wood paneling from the 50's that's rich and real. Think gorgeous built-in studies in uber-wealthy homes. Then there's that notched crap from the late sixties and seventies that makes you want to cry -- hardly better than gussied up plywood and ubiquitous in that era -- even in expensive houses. One is Katherine Hepburn, the other is Happy Days.

Two years ago, I had a knotty-pine paneled ceiling installed in my kitchen.....the results are spectacular and totally unexpected. Natural wood brings such warmth to what could otherwise be a very cold space.

My1956 modern house has the same panelling as #4 in the upstairs - it stays. But the 1970's fake wood panelling in the basement? It's going - going - gone! this spring.

Thanks for this post! I live with wood paneling 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I love it!

I am wondering though, if anyone has any tips for "reviving" wood paneling? Removing scuffs and scratches and just generally brightening it up?

I've never lived with wood paneling 24/7, except for one room in the house I grew up in, but I still vote "yay". I love the 70s and that whole California ranch look, I even love knotty pine.

I still hate it.

Any of those rooms would be improved if they painted the panelling white.

I'll never change my mind.

(ps. my husband disagrees. I think there is a chapter in the Secret Book of Manhood about not keeping wood unpainted)

Nooooo. No.No.No.No.No.

As JACLYNP so eloquently put it: It's not cool, chic, contemporary or anything but depressing. It sucks the light and color out of everything. And I'd bet my last dime not a blessed one of the positive comments come from anyone who is forced to live in such wicked oppression.

Unless you live in a craftsman bungalow, this is a no.

I think people just like it for the nostalgia factor.

We have long leaf pine wood paneling in the bedroom of our rental house. It's a huge room, about 15 x 20 with windows along one side and no paneling on the short ends. One wall is wallpapered, the other is painted. It has actually turned out to be really beautiful and cozy. I agree with PI that having a lot of light makes all the difference.

I'm not feeling the love for wood paneling...just not my thing. Having said that, there's wood paneling (good quality, gorgeous color, maybe genuinely aged) and there's wood paneling (cheap, orange-toned and hideous).

Here we go... just because Mad Men is back, we'll have to suffer that crap again...

We are buying a fantastic mid century home with majority of it covered in real wood panels. Even the living room vaulted ceiling is covered in paneling. Should we paint it????

well geez. I was feeling much better about actually loving my rental's wood paneling until I read some of these comments. Apparently I am actually living in dark, depressing, oppression.

my wife and i are always at odds with the wood paneling in our eichler. we have about three walls left in the house that have the original paneling. she wants to either paint them or do some wallpaper, and i'd rather keep them original. i think it keeps the character and integrity of the eichler...but i might lose the battle in a couple more years.

Ugh, there is nothing I hate more than wood paneling. I can live with any other aspect, but I just cannot do the paneling. I have to paint it and treat it like it's sheetrock and just do the best I can to ignore it. It depresses me, disgusts me, fills me with dread. Nearly every negative childhood memory I have involves some place with wood paneled walls. Ick, ick, ick. HATE it.

My MCM split level home still has the original walnut wood paneling in the downstairs family room. Typically, I'm not a fan of wood paneling, especially if paired with brown flooring or other dark colors. Either there just too much brown or the room just appears too dark. But with my wood paneling, it's paired with light cream colored vinyl tiles (or at least I think they're vinyl - they're not asbestos at least!), and that makes the wood paneling actually look nice. Now, I couldn't imagine my family room without the wood paneling. It does add a certain 'richness' to the family room.

If you have an Eichler or an original mid-century modern with exposed plank ceilings or original mahogany veneer walls - don't paint over them! Or at least think twice about it. It will decrease the value, and move away from the originality of the design (and be a royal pain, in not impossible, to restore). Just look at old Shulman photos of case study houses and be thankful yours hasn't been altered.

60s and 70s full-wall paneling can be difficult to look at, though. I'd imagine its because the trend negatively inhabits many of our memories. Just imagine the reaction to granite counters in 15 years..

Oh god no! Only in Hoff's house. And even then it doesn't completely work ...

Like Linkyinva, I sometimes like horizontal boards (dislike vertical paneling), but only lighter ones--no orange tinge and PLEASE not knotty pine. Bleached, limed, lightly whitewashed, or just a birch or lighter-tone wood on an accent wall in a well-lit room, yes indeed.

I lived in a rental with fake (plastic) wood paneling and after three years of trying, finally convinced my landlady to let me paint it. It became the most charming beachy little cottage after that!

I now live in a town with lots of 1940s houses with a paneled room--I love white painted wood panelling for the same reason i love beadboard-there's something lovely about the texture of a wood wall. I see wood panelling as a plus when I look at real estate-but only as something I would paint white!

We live in a 1956 modern ranch that has a bar area in the basement covered in knotty pine, similar to no. 1. My son's bedroom is also completely covered in knotty pine. All of it is original to the house and I wouldn't dream of painting any of it. I, personally, think it's gorgeous. One day, when my son moves out (not for a long time), I'm going to turn his room into my office and I will be surrounded by knotty pine. I don't find it to be dark and depressing. Instead, I find it to be warm and inviting.

I have wood paneling just like in the first picture in my daylight basement and I love it. I agree that the thin, cheap stuff is horrible, but the real wood paneling adds lovely warmth and texture. I have mostly MCM furniture down there and I think it really works.

Good lord, people. It's just wood. It's not like someone smeared vomit on the walls. My house has tons of original knotty pine paneling and it's glorious. Open up your minds a little. It's just wood. Like from nature. Which is really hip to dig right now.

There's a HUGE difference between high quality real wood paneling and the crappy 70s stuff a lot of us probably grew up with. We had the crappy kind in the house I grew up in and it was awful, although after my parents painted it, it wasn't bad. Off the top of my head I can think of 3 different homes that have beautiful, high quality wood paneling, all in very different styles, and they're all beautiful!

Some things don't deserve to come back.

The entire upper floor of my 1930 bungalow was redone in the '50s with heavy, orangey knotty pine paneling. I liked the treehouse effect it had on the well-lit bedroom for awhile...then I decided I didn't want to live in a treehouse any more. It's been painted light, light blue-grey and I love it. The texture of the vertical tongue in groove is actually a plus, in my opinion. The rest of the upstairs is not so sunny, so it's pretty gloomy with those dark walls. They're getting the same treatment soon.

Knotty pine and good wood paneling: LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE

I have wood paneling in my house- my office/playroom and the living room. It's good quality, solid wood.

You can see it in the background here. I actually think I'm going to leave it. I've only lived here 3 weeks though, so I reserve the right to change my mind.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c92/Kissum/IMG_2217.jpg

SO timely for me, this post! Just now agonizing over what to do in my LR which has the knotty pine just like in pic #1. The house DOES look out on a large creek and woodlands - no bears, I'm afraid, but lots of wildlife - and I like the lodge feeling. It has many large windows, an off-white cathedral ceiling, and two skylights; and a DIY mosaic fireplace & chimney, various shades of brown/reddish/offwhite marble scraps.

But ARRGH, that paneling - I really think it's the color that grosses me out. Dark is fine, in general, with all this natural light, but not that icky reddish stain.

And I LIKE knotty pine! Or so I thought. In a later-added dining room there was the fake 70's stuff which I simply painted over. With a good primer, I didn't have to prep the slick surface at all. And it looks great.

But I've got that [male? I'm a chick] revulsion to painting over REAL wood. I've seen several posts where people painted out that same kind of busy paneling (shiplap?) and at first glance, it seems to work. But when I look more closely, frankly, it looks cheap. The beachy look is fine for a beachy cottage, but this room is a bit more "grand." To me, painting over stuff like that just looks like they did a bad job of trying to hide it.

My latest plan (they change daily) is to put DARKER brown stain over the orangey-red stuff. That will make the knots blend in more. Anyway, wish me luck. I need it.

No. Just no. I spent a good portion of my late 20's removing all the dark, depressing wood paneling covering every freaking wall in the only home I could afford to buy. It was glued on and nailed on. The crevices were full of decades worth of dust. The home was cave-like. Over time I have DIY'd it all out. Just like the popcorn ceiling. I would never, ever consider putting up wood paneling anywhere in my fresh, bright home. Just like a popcorn ceiling.

I also say no. My parents had them in the basement when I was a kid, it was ugly then, it still is ;)

ugh. the house we rent has wood paneling... in. every. single. room. it's terrible.

My mind is open, Eartha. People are allowed their opinion to hate paneled walls - and I do. Openly, mindfully hate them. Feel free to love them. Live and let live, baby.

I've been in an Eichler where it looked alright. Otherwise, it usually looks like crap.

This is a trend that deserves to have died, and it never needs to be resurrected.

I would bet that the people who are posting negative comments about the wood paneling are thinking of the old "trailer trash" fake wood paneling. That should have been banished years ago . . . . but there is really nothing like real wood finished to a beautiful patina. Along with stone, it is the real thing. It's neutral -- with wood paneled walls you can add any ol' color you want and it's fine. You can stain it as dark as you want, or pickle it for a whitewashed look. Add a high-contrast hardware to change the look up.

I would never paint over beautiful wood, but I would (and have) put in the effort necessary to refinish it.

As you said in the beginning -- style is absolutely, historically cyclical. I've lived long enough to see 'em all come and go. Keep an open mind, or you have to eat your words!

First off, high-waisted pants are ELEGANT and the way pants should be, instead of these second-skin skinny jeans that are all anyone wears. I LOVE wood paneling (not knotty pine, but the rest) and wooden furniture. I would love to surround myself with it, the darker the better. I am fair sick of hearing how ugly it is when it is NOT. I'm so sorry that everyone who was under 12 in the 1970s hated their childhoods and has nothing but hate and loathing for the beautiful things that surrounded them and came to be associated with all the crap in their lives. I am also sick of seeing people paint over beautiful, solid wood furniture on these design sites and then be hailed as some sort of geniuses. Barf! Hello, they just ruined something lovely with something all of us could do. Not brilliant. I have always loved Mid-Century Modern and the Astro-Funk and earthy styles of the 1970s, even back in the 1990's (the 1980s still lingered, ugly, tasteless, awful, with T.V. programs that were preachy (every one had to have some over-emphasized moral) and for the most part, not funny) when it was ridiculed and unpopular (bizarre, considering the inherent coolness there). Just because the media says something is good or bad doesn't make it so, it is what it is. All the people saying wood paneling is awful: yeah, because institutional, glaring, bland white, beige, or grey are SOOOO much better. No, not even.

I just bought and moved into an 1895 ... something (it was built in 3 clear stages, beginning with what was probably a Greek revival cottage with Arts & Crafts influences) and I am tired, oh so sick and tired of hearing about the evils of wood paneling. Yes, I'm keeping it. No, I'm not covering it with anything. Yes, really! I suppose I'm supposed to paint everything white and fill it with all white furniture and white white white white WHITE, because that's "modern," right?

The textured wallpaper is going to go, and the strange fake fireplace needs a little something, but the wood and contrasting beams are hands down my favorite thing about this entire house.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/hWL10d32455MR__rUhUMfNMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

Being in the midst of stripping a century of paint off the doors and trim in another room, I address this to those monsters who paint over original wood paneling: I hate you. I hate you so, so much more than you can possibly hate your wood paneling.

Why not put paintable wallpaper liner over it instead, so that the person who comes after you can easily undo the damage? You think people of future decades won't gag at YOUR taste? More likely they'll see the way you permanently ruined your walls and weep.

(Now, my kitchen does have 70s plastic "wood." I'd heartily approve of killing that stuff with fire if it didn't produce such toxic fumes when it burns.)