Thinking of improving your home before selling?

There are improvements you can make to your home that will indeed make the house more desirable to potential buyers and will help you sell your house faster and for more money.  But the key to home improvements is knowing which ones to do and which ones to skip.

If you're improving your home for your own benefit, go all out.  But if you are doing the improvements with the thoughts of putting your home on the market, maybe you should reconsider.

As anyone who reads my blog knows, I am an avid DIY & HGTV watcher!  However, some of the home improvement and selling your house shows appear to be so out of touch with reality that it boggles my mind.  Maybe because most of them are shot in California and Canada? All I know is whatever planet they are on - it's nowhere near Alabama.  I watched a show the other night on HGTV where the folks put $35,000 into their existing home and received an increase of $80,000 in the value of their home.  All they did was finish a basement and update an existing bathroom!  $80,000 - really??

Then there are the flipper shows.  These shows (again mostly in California or Canada) feature folks who buy a house for say $100,000.  They spend about $30,000 on it and then turn around in under a month and sell it for $300,000.  While these shows are very entertaining and even educational, they are grossly out of touch with the reality that most of us have to live with.  I also think these shows give local realtors nightmares. When a realtor gets a first time seller who watches these shows and then goes wild and updates the kitchen, bath and adds a deck and then is unrealistically determined to get double the price they paid for the house 3 years ago.....it's a nightmare for the realtor.

Suffice it to say, this post will have zero to do with the markets of Canada or California.

Of course, no matter where you live there are improvements you can do to your home that will raise the value and attractiveness of your home.  But sometimes all it will do is improve the attractiveness but not the value.  If you want a quick sell, then improving the attractiveness is a good thing.  Just don't expect to recoup the cost of the improvements in the final price. Below are a few improvements that will likely cost you money in the long run.

Landscaping

Curb appeal is essential to selling your home.  If you can't get them interested in the exterior - they're not going to be interested in seeing the interior.  At the same time, always remember that landscaping is akin to paint colors in that it always boils down to personal taste.  While you may think your water features, statues and expanse of neatly manicured boxwoods scream beautiful - a potential buyer may think it instead screams maintenance and others will think it simply screams ugly.  It's all in the individuals personal taste.   Below is a picture of a home with tons of boxwoods in a formal garden setting.  While this is lovely to look at........imagine how many hours are needed during the growing season to maintain this look. Most house hunters are looking for low maintenance lawns.  They won't mind mowing but spending every weekend trimming shrubs, mulching extensive flower beds or getting algae out of the fountain, is just not their idea of a fun weekend.

Along with fountains, pools are another potential money drain.  The only exception to this rule is when you are the only house in the neighborhood without a pool.  If people are coming to view your home, chances are they are familiar to some degree with your neighborhood already.  They might have driven around it.  They might know someone who lives nearby. Either way, they are going to be aware that every house in the neighborhood boasts a pool - but yours.  That can be a deterrent.  However, if this isn't the case and you add a pool you have just lost 50% of potential buyers because half of the house shoppers won't want a pool due to the cost of maintaining it and the liability issues.  Especially if they have small children or are planning to have them in the near future.  Putting in a pool in this situation will cost you both time and money when  you try to sell your house.

Flooring

No one wants to buy a house with bad flooring.  At the same time, no one wants to buy a house with wall to wall carpeting or unusual tiling either.  While you as a homeowner may think ripping up carpeting is not that big of a chore, potential home buyers don't want to shell out their life savings to buy a house at full price and then spend even  more money, time and effort to rip out carpeting just to be forced to spend even more money, time and effort to either repair the hardwoods beneath or install new hardwoods.

Same is true of unusual tiling.  You may absolutely love the intricate tile work in your kitchen, bath or sunroom.  But you may just be the only person who does.  I can't imagine it, but apparently someone thought the tile work below was a good idea......it wasn't.

If you need to address the flooring in your home before putting it on the market, do a little research and find out what the current trend is in flooring in your particular area.  If it's Berber carpeting then go that route.  But if it's hardwoods - don't install Berber.  If you do - asking price is history.

High End (here and there)

I have viewed tons of houses in my lifetime.  The thing that always blows my mind is when I look at a house and hate everything about it BUT the kitchen.  Or I hate everything BUT the bathroom, etc.  I'm not going to buy a house to get a kitchen.  Not many people will.

People seem to think that as long as they put high end finishes in their kitchen and/or bathroom that potential buyers will overlook anything else.  That's not the case.  If your house isn't consistent in the quality of the finishes, it will just make the areas that aren't high end stand out like a sore thumb.  You want the entire property inside and out to be consistent.  Otherwise you will lose money in the sale of your home.

Better to go with a mid range finish and appliances in your kitchen/bath and then spend the extra money elsewhere maybe in refinishing the hardwoods and adding an outside gathering area to the back yard.  

Warning:  What you consider high end might be what someone else considers trashy.  While the following picture shows a kitchen overflowing with expensive finishes and detailing.....I personally find it gaudy and WAY over done.  However, someone apparently loved it enough to pay for it.

Below are pictures of kitchens taken by Realtors.  While you don't want to over improve....anything would be an improvement to these kitchens.

The photo below shows an over improved kitchen in an under improved house.  I call it over improved only because it doesn't come close to matching the rest of the house.  Not that anyone would want it to match...but you get my point.  Notice how new, modern, neat and clean the kitchen looks?  Now compare it to the living room of the same house......oh dear!  It's as if someone stole the kitchen from another house and plopped it into this one.  I think they should have stolen a living room while they were at it.

Mystery Improvements

Mystery improvements involve money spent in areas that improve the home while not doing so esthetically.  Updating or upgrading the electrical or plumbing systems would be one example of a mystery improvement.  Perhaps the basement leaks and you spend money having that taken care of.   Getting a new HVAC system or tankless water heater are other examples.

While all of the above improves the property, it doesn't necessarily improve the property's value to a buyer.  When a buyer views your property, he or she feels they have a right to expect everything to be in good working order to begin with.  Hearing that the electrical has been newly updated is always great news.  But it's not something that a buyer will be willing to compensate you for.  In a buyer's mind, all the above items are simply a part of normal wear and tear on a property.  It's normal maintenance that any homeowner should do whether they are thinking of selling their home or not.

On the flip side, if you don't do the mystery improvements and you get an offer on your house, the chances are great that their inspector will discover these deficiencies and you will either be asked to pay to have them done anyway or the buyer will want a reduction in price.

So with all of the above in mind, what exactly should you do before listing your house for sale??  My recommendation would be to first attend to any outstanding maintenance issues that an inspector might discover and that would give the buyers leverage in lowering your price (or walking away from the deal altogether).  Then I would worry about the esthetics of your property.

Rather than putting in that new kitchen and bath, I'd work with what I already have and simply upgrade simple things such as the faucet, backsplash, counter tops and perhaps reface the cabinets.  Then I'd make sure the entire property (outside too) is spotless.  Slap a coat of neutral paint on every wall and ceiling and call it a day.  

Before I go please let me stress that if you decide to pretty up the kitchen, back splashes, counter tops and cabinets all go together as one update.  Why people think that they can update the counter tops but leave the old dated cabinets as they are is a mystery to me.  I've seen folks buy new counter tops but leave the old pine cabinets untouched and the torn vinyl flooring just as they found it.  Huh???  If you don't have the money to do all of it - don't do any of it.  For around $250 you can get a kit from Rustoleum that will refinish the cabinets without sanding and for the same price (again from Rustoleum) a product that will refinish your tired laminate counter tops.  So for what these folks paid just to replace their counter tops you can redo both. When people look at this picture they don't see it as "well, at least we can save on buying new counter tops" they see it as "We'll have to toss out the counter tops anyway when we have to replace the cabinets and the flooring".

Hope this was helpful.

HGTV & DIY Shows

BUYING AND SELLING

I love Drew and Jonathan Scott.  I watch their show "Property Brothers" faithfully!  Never miss it!  However, their new show "Buying and Selling" sucks in my personal opinion!

In case you haven't watched it yet, let me give you the "plot".  Couple wants to buy their dream home but can't seem to sell their current home.  Enter Drew and Jonathan.  Drew is a real estate agent and Jonathan is a contractor.

They convince the couple that they will never be able to sell their current home for enough money to allow them to purchase their dream home - UNLESS they renovate their current home.

One couple was asked to invest $15,000 in reno costs and at the end of the day (and 5 weeks later) they sold their house for only $20,000 more.  So this couple only gained an extra $5,000 to add to the cost of buying their dream home.

Now I'm not real estate expert, but it would appear to me that they would have been in a far better place had they just added the $15,000 to their down payment on their dream home.

To be fair, maybe had they not done the reno work, they never would have sold their current home for any price?  But we'll never know because they did the reno work.

2017 Update:

Still don't like this show....sorry guys.

PROPERTY BROTHERS

As I said above, I always watch this show....always.  I love the concept of buying a house for the bones and then putting the bulk of your money into customizing the house to suit YOUR taste - not the previous owners taste - or lack thereof.

While Jonathan's design taste differs from mine - a lot - the before and after results are amazing!  My problem with Jonathan's design choices are always the same.  He goes into old houses and knocks the character right out!

I try to be fair (there's that word again) so I will say that I understand the current fad is the dreaded open concept so he's giving them what they want.  However, I would think that Drew, being a real estate professional, would try to rein it in a little bit because this whole open concept fad will eventually go away and when these folks get ready to sell their reno'ed houses, they're going to have to put up some walls.

The only part about this show that annoys me (besides the open concept craze) is the part where they insinuate to the couple and the audience that Jonathan can turn an entire house into their dream home on their budget.  In actuality, the couples only get either a main floor or the bedroom suite for their money.  I've never seen them do an entire house and only very rarely do I see them doing a kitchen, bath, bedroom and living room.  That's a very rare thing.  You get living room, dining room and kitchen OR you get master bedroom, closet and master bath.  Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that once Drew and Jonathan are gone - the homeowners will still have to come up with enough cash to finish the rest of the house.

But considering everything - I still love this show.

LOVE IT OR LIST IT

Where do I begin with this show?  I love it AND I hate it.  I love it because David (the real estate agent) is hilarious.  I also love trying to guess which way the home owners are going to go.  I even love the end when I get to see what Hilary (the designer) has done to their home in an attempt to make them stay.

But the thing I hate the most about this show is the apparent bad choices made by Hilary.  I realize this is a TV show and sometimes, well most of the time, every decision made by the cast is made for shock or entertainment value - not for reasons of logic.  However, it never ceases to amaze and frustrate me when the homeowners give Hilary their list of must haves in order to keep them in their current home and Hilary immediately ignores their wishes and goes her own direction with their money.

Example.  Homeowners give Hilary a huge must have list and a very small budget.  At the top of that list is a new kitchen and somewhere near the bottom is to have a family room (or extra bedroom) in the currently unfinished basement.

The show is filmed mostly in Canada and I'm not at all familiar with real estate values up there so I can't say with any certainty that there's more resale value in a house with a new kitchen versus a house with a finished basement.  However, where I'm from, a new kitchen trumps a finished basement all day long.

The other thing that never ceases to annoy me about her ignoring the kitchen in favor of the basement is the surprise factor.  I'm no construction expert but even I know that anytime you head to the basement of an old house and start pulling out walls and digging up the floors - you're going to find expensive problems that have to be addressed before you can go any further.  That means your initial budget has been reduced by half - at least.

The final thing that drives me insane about this show is the fact that she tells the homeowners "I can't do your kitchen because the basement costs so much" then at the reveal you discover that she spent $5,000 on custom window coverings and $3,000 on lighting fixtures. All the other furniture and decorative accessories were similarly over priced.  I really think that when she noticed her money was getting tight, maybe she should have scaled down on her shopping and put that money into at least refacing the kitchen cabinets.

During the show you almost always see the contractors making a mistake and then charging the homeowners to fix their mistake.  Example.  On one episode, the contractors put in new stairs to the basement.  The inspector came back and said they were a quarter inch off so they had to rip them out and do them again.  They charged the entire cost to the homeowner.  Sorry but if YOU make the mistake then YOU pay for it.

Or what about the time they were going to put in a skylight or something and when the contractor got up on the roof, he noticed the roof needed to be replaced.  Did they just get off the roof, tell the homeowner and then let the homeowner decide what to do?  No.  They replaced the roof which came out of the homeowners budget.  They weren't there to do exterior or roof repair - they were there to work on the inside of the house.

Hmm.  In reading this section of my post over, it makes me wonder why I watch this show.

BRONSON PINCHOT PROJECT

This show ROCKS!  Every time I watch it I learn something new.  Everytime! Shows like this one reminds me why I watch home improvement channels to begin with!  The plethora of information that Bronson Pinchot imparts is so varied and plentiful that you really almost have to watch each episode at least twice to catch all of it.  He doesn't just tell you about what he's going to do to the attic space - he tells you why it's called an attic.

His style is not at all the same as mine.  Most of his work is - but he deviates from my taste most of the time and a lot.  I personally like paint.  He, too likes paint, but only after it's aged for about 200 years.

Great show in every way! Educational, instructional, entertaining......love it!!

2017 Update:  Unfortunately this show is no longer airing.  This makes me sad because I adored it and loved the information that I received every single episode.

REHAB ADDICT

What can I say about this show?  Nothing bad, that's for sure.  Nicole Curtis is a beautiful woman who rolls up her sleeves and gets down and dirty with her rehabs!

There have been other woman led DIY shows in the past.  Tons and tons of them.  However, Nicole Curtis isn't just a woman led DIY show.  She is a force to be reckoned with.  Most of the other woman led shows only depict the woman as a "part" of the process whereas Rehab Addict depicts the woman as nearly the entire process.

The show doesn't just show her made up and pretty it shows her sans make up, dirty, disheveled, hot and tired.  It doesn't show her fluffing pillows and talking wall color, it shows her knocking out walls and sanding floors.

During the whole process, she talks about the mistakes she's made when doing houses and how she's learned from it - so we can learn from it. She shows us how she "shops the curbs" to get items to reuse.  She walks us through her design and rehabs and tells us not only what decisions she's making but why.

If I were going to have hero worship, it would be aimed directly at Nicole Curtis.

Again, I say, I love this show!!

2017 Update:  Where to start?  Somewhere between season 6 and season 8, Nicole Curtis lost her damned mind.  Maybe she is still the same old gal but was able to camouflage it better?  Who knows?  What I do know is that when she kept her personal life separate from her show, I loved it.  I learned something new every episode and I loved watching it.  I never missed an episode.  Then came season 6.

Season 6 was the beginning of the end for me.  That was the season when Nicole began inviting us into her personal life more than ever before.  She renovated a house for her son in that season.  Then we saw her work with Lebron James to redo a house for an impoverished family. We were shown how she uses volunteers to do a lot of the grunt work on her houses.   There were hints that this was the norm for her in past episodes but it appeared at the time, to be an exception rather than the rule until this season.  This habit of hers particularly annoyed me since she sells the houses for a profit once she's done with them.  So she gets folks to pitch in, do most of the grunt work like painting, cleaning, raking, planting flowers/shrubs and even to the point that she sells tickets to view her houses and then she turns around, sells them and makes a profit??  WTH?  Am I the only person who sees this as a rip-off?

Then she gets all involved in the life of Tessa.  I get that she was touched and wanted to help but she gets on these sanctimonious tirades about the whole thing that borders bragging.  She talks ad nauseam about how she is going to fight for Tessa and help find a cure....huh?....did she go to medical school?  Does she really think she is so powerful that she can prevent that child from dying of her disease?  Unfortunately, Tessa did pass away and I am saddened about that.  But the mighty Nicole Curtis made a few bucks in the process which saddens me as well.

Season 7 finds Nicole purchasing her grandparent's old place and fixing it up.  I watched the first episode and skipped this season.  The episode just comes across as being so fake to me.  When Nicole begins waxing on about how family oriented she is and how important family is to her it makes me ill.

Then her personal life surfaces all over the internet.  News of her being dumped by (of all people) Dave Coulier.  News that she moved to another state in an attempt to interfere with her baby's daddy getting to spend time with his child.  News of her desperate attempts to keep that baby away from his father.

Then there's the whole breastfeeding scenario.  You want to breastfeed your child?  Fine.  Do it.  I don't want to hear about it nor do I want to see it.  That's my personal choice as much as breastfeeding your THREE-year-old is your personal choice.  I won't push my choice on you and I'd appreciate your not shoving your personal choice in my face.  Deal?  Apparently not with Nicole because it's become glaringly obvious that in her mind, HER opinion is the ONLY opinion that matters.  

Newsflash Nicole Curtis:  I don't watch your show to hear your views on personal matters, or cancer, or poverty or breastfeeding.....I watch your show....or I should say "watched" your show to learn about home renovation.

Did you know that Nicole and her parents are involved in a nasty lawsuit?  Yep.  Apparently, Nicole and her parents butted heads over the care (and estate) of her grandmother and Nicole's oldest son (Ethan) ran away from home and went to his grandparent's house which didn't sit well with Queen Curtis.   At one point during this family feud, Nicole's mother tried to get a restraining order on Nicole - that's how contentious this family feud became.  How ugly do your phone calls with your daughter have to get that you decide to head to the Court to make them stop her from calling you?  Pretty ugly I'd say.  Nicole even tried to ban her mother from coming to the hospital to see the grandmother.  WTH?   

Putting all of that aside, I have tried to watch season 8 of her show.  It is no longer filled with helpful tips.  It no longer focuses on the job of renovating houses but more on Nicole's personal opinions and on her and her new partner flirting and frolicking.  Was it really necessary to show her getting in the backseat of a work truck to pump her breast milk?  Is that a part of renovation?

HGTV if you're listening......either pull her in line or cut her loose.  I'm not watching and no one that I know who used to watch is watching either.





I kinda hate the direction that home improvement and decorating shows have headed.  For years HGTV and DIY focused on showing us how to make our homes more comfortable and attractive and more importantly, how to do that on a budget.  There were a few shows out there whose format depended on contractors, designers and such but for the most part, it really was a do it yourself atmosphere.  However, now most of them focus on how wonderful your home can be IF you hire a contractor and a designer and a big crew of other miscellaneous folks to come in and do the work.

I miss the shows below because when I watched them, I headed for the DIY store to buy some paint, or to the thrift store to find a dresser or whatever piece of furniture I saw them transform.  It was cheap.  It was fun.  It was educational and instructional.  Not so much anymore.

TRADING SPACES

I watched this show from the first episode in 2000 all the way to the end which was in 2008. 8 years!  The format of this show pitted neighbors designing a room in each other's home with no input or peeking from the homeowner and all for under $1,000 (they raised the amount a little in later years). 

Some of the "designs" were horrific but I learned more from watching this show than from any other.  I learned how to make lamps out of ordinary stuff.  I learned how to whitewash wood, how to do a crackle finish, how to make my own wallpaper, how to make curtains out of bed sheets, how to make a dining room table out of spare wood.....the list goes on and on.

Even when the designs were horrific, there was ample entertainment value to the show.  I really miss this one and wish they would rerun the episodes!!   To this day if I could hire any designer to do my home it would be either Doug Wilson or Edward Walker hands down.

DECORATING CENTS

This show hosted by Joan Steffend was truly a staple in my TV viewing for many many years.  This show started on the air in 1997, well before Trading Spaces made their premiere in 2000.  At some point, I could no longer find it on the air.  According to IMDB, it is still running somewhere.  However, it also states that Joan only hosted one episode back in 2008 and I know that to be incorrect as well.  Guess that proves that not everything you read on the web is true.

The gist of the show was for Joan and her guest designer to take one room and completely redo it for under $500.

Even back in 1997 that was a tiny budget but somehow she and her guest always made it work.  Not that many of her designs suited my personal taste but the rooms always looked far better than they did before Joan worked her magic.

I learned how to make my own book shelves from scrap wood from watching this show.  I learned how to embellish cheap curtains, how to stencil and many other inexpensive ways to update the look of a room at little to no money.  Another show I wish would go into reruns.

And my personal favorite?

CHANGING ROOMS

This show was the granddaddy of all design shows!  It began in England and aired on BBC beginning in 1996 and ran until 2004.

I began watching it on BBC America back in 1997 and watched it faithfully until the last episode aired in 2004.  Then I continued watching the reruns.

This show was, in format, exactly like the American show "Trading Spaces" where two sets of homeowners traded houses and designed a room in one another's houses.  The British version featured a cocky and oftentimes ill-tempered carpenter, Andy Kane.  On all other design shows the carpenters are always friendly, helpful and bend over backward to get the projects done exactly as requested by the designers.  Not so much with Andy Kane.  Thus my reasoning for loving him!

So now you have my list of must watch, wish I could still watch and don't bother watching do it yourself shows.

Let me know what you think!

Paneling........ugh

I have lived places that had paneling.  A couple of those properties had the really nice real wood paneling that gave the room a distinguished and warm feel.  However, the majority of those properties had sheet paneling that has about as much real wood in it as my plastic lawn chairs.  In my neck of the woods, we call that trailer paneling.  There has never been a painting or piece of furniture ever made in the history of the world that when put up against this type of paneling will make it look better.

When dealing with a wall covering that you can't live with, the best solution (in a perfect world) would be to have it all removed and replaced with nice new sheetrock.  However, what if you don't have the budget to have that done?  My solution?  Paint it!  This post will give you instructions on how to do this and a few visuals as to what it will look like if you do.

I'm a little torn about the thick really nice pine paneling.  I get that it's real wood and my rule has always been "if it's real wood - never paint".  However, when you have an entire room with it on every wall and only one or two windows.....I have to break that rule and paint it.  Once in while I will leave maybe one wall with the paneling untouched.  Another option would be to tape it off to chair railing height.  Paint the upper portion of the walls, clean the lower portion, add a chair rail and love the results!

But this post will be about completely changing paneling so let's get going!

Most people clean, prime and paint and then call it a day with paneling.  I don't know if it's because I'm a masochist or a perfectionist but when I cover paneling - I don't ever want to be reminded that there's paneling beneath that paint!  My only exception is when the paneling is real wood and you get that 3-D effect in the grooves.  I like the look of the deep groves once painted.  But trailer paneling?  I fill in the grooves and once I'm done, you'd never know it's not sheetrock.

Here's a few before shots of the paneling in question.

There's nothing even remotely attractive about this paneling.  All it accomplishes is making the room look dated and very dark.  Who could live in these rooms and not become suicidal??

Now some folks agree that they should paint the paneling.  But some folks obviously need more practice and taste before they attempt it judging from the picture below.

Below is an example of paneling that I'd never paint!  The first picture shows a room with floor to ceiling wood and then more wood in the beams.  However, it has tons of natural light that floods the room and keeps it from looking dark and depressing.  I'd never paint the wood in this room!

The room below has such gorgeous paneling!  Anyone who would even consider painting that should be arrested!

The room below has wood on every surface.  Floor, walls, ceiling.  Yet, again, because of the high ceilings and huge volume of natural light, it looks neither dark nor cave like.

Next take a look at the real wood pine paneling I was talking about.  It's real wood.  It has a nice wide plank.  It has wonderful knots.  I really love it.  Except for the fact that it covers every wall in a small dark room.  I've noticed that to be a real trend back in the 60's and 70's.  They invariably saved their dark paneling for small dark rooms.  Not a good idea.

Now how do you paint paneling?  While it's not a hard job, there are more steps to correctly paint paneling than sheet rock.

1.  You have to clean the paneling.  Paneling will grab hold of more dust, smoke, cooking oils than sheetrock, so while it may be okay to just take a dust mop and wipe down a wall covered in sheetrock, you need to actually hand wipe a paneled wall because every place that has a film will reject or at best, severely weaken the paint coverage.  Best to do it right the first time than to have to repeat the job down the road.

2.  Once you've cleaned the paneling and it's completely dry, we move to the next step.  Lightly sand the paneling to remove any gloss and take care of any splintering in the product.  Once you're done this, wipe the wall down with a damp (not wet) cloth to remove any dust.

Warning:  Shortcuts are awesome!!  I use them whenever possible.  However, if you don't remove the gloss and prime your paneling, your paint will literally slide off......below is an example for you.

3.  While you are cleaning and sanding your walls, stay on the lookout for any portions that have bowed.  As long as the paneling is dark, these bows don't seem to show up as much but once you have lightened them up - any bows will be glaringly obvious.  Using a nail with a head (to prevent the nail from eventually slipping through the paneling), nail these areas down to reduce or eliminate the bows.

4.  Now we get to fill in the all the grooves.  This is not as much of a time consuming job as you might think at first glance. Trust me, it's all worth it in the end.  I use the same joint compound used on sheetrock because it tends to shrink less over time.  I have used spackle in the past.  It worked just fine and my finished product was beautiful.  However, in about a year's time, it had shrunk to the point that it cracked in spots.  Those cracks showed through the paint and a redo was necessary.  For most sheet paneling the grooves aren't very deep so one good application should be all that is needed.  Once you get into the swing of it, it'll go by really quickly.  Let the compound dry (or cure) completely.  I did my paneling over the weekends so in one weekend, I cleaned and filled in the grooves and didn't come back to prime it until the following weekend which gave the compound more than ample time to cure.  However, if you're trying to get it done quickly, I'd follow the directions on the compound and allow it to cure based on the manufacturer's recommendations.  Normally 4 to 6 hours will be fine.  Below is an example of the process.

5.  Now that the compound is cured, go back over your work with a 100 grit sandpaper and just lightly sand to remove any excess.  You don't have to get every single drop that has gotten onto the paneling.  Just sand enough to make it all smooth.  Then, again, wipe the walls with a damp cloth to remove any dust.  If you still notice the grooves, go back over it once more with the joint compound step.

6.  You are ready to prime!  Any DIY store or paint store can point you in the direction of the proper primer for this project if you just tell them you are priming sheet paneling.  If you hate asking or the store's too busy for you to wait on a clerk, then just look for a shellac based stain blocking primer.  Make sure you turn the can around and read the directions to make sure it's the product that is geared for sheet paneling.  With this step, you apply it the same as wall paint.  I like to do two coats letting the first one cure completely before applying the second coat.  After you have applied the first coat and it has cured, go back over your wall with your hand to look for any rough spots that might need to be spot sanded.

7.  Paint!  This is the absolute last step in the process!  I am a two coat kinda girl but if you've properly prepared and primed your wall, one coat will usually do the trick especially if you've asked the paint guy/girl to tint your primer - highly recommended.

Below are a few examples of painted paneling.  The first is a kitchen covered in fake wood. A great big shout out to Kristie Barnett (The Decorologist) for these kitchen pictures.

Look what she's done to this kitchen!!  No new custom cabinets, just new lighting, counter tops, cabinet hardware, new floor covering and (most importantly) she painted all that dark wood! Beautiful!

Below is a paneled den.  It's not sheet paneling but there's just SO much wood in this rather small room.  From the picture it appears the room gets ample natural light.  But it's just not enough to liven up this dark room.

Now look at what she's done with it!  An amazing difference!  How bright and clean does this look?

Below is a very dark living room.  Even with the huge windows, this room looks like a cave.

Look at it now!  Again, light and clean.

Below is an example of paneling without filling in the grooves.  It looks amazing!

Below is another example of not filling in the grooves.  However, this one just looks like painted sheet paneling and I am not impressed.  I'm sure it looks far better than it did before, but it would have looked so much better with the grooves filled in.  Also, if you will notice about the middle of the wall towards the top is a section of paneling that has bowed.  I can't stress enough the importance of checking your wall (before you do anything else) for bowed sections and putting a few well placed nails in order to straighten it out.

As I said earlier, the best possible solution to replacing wall coverings such as sheet paneling, is to have a professional rip it all out and replace with sheetrock.  But sometimes for various reasons, this is not an option.  Maybe you're putting your house on the market for financial reasons and the money's not there.    Maybe it's a room that isn't used much and the added cost just isn't worth it to you.  Maybe you're like the majority of folks in this country and all your paycheck is already spent on rent, groceries and utilities.  Whatever your reason, painting the paneling is both a viable and attractive alternative to replacing it.

Feel free to let me know how your paneling experience goes!  I'd love to see photo's!

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