Major cottage update: painting wood paneling

Let me start by sharing that I am a lover of wood. I know, this sounds completely contradictory to the title above, but let me explain...

In our cottage we have absolutely beautiful wood beams, our whole home is actually a post and beam structure so it is held up with these massive natural pieces of wood that frame the home and add eclectic character to our ceiling. In addition to the grand wood beams, we have rustic hardwood flooring, flooring that we need to have refinished but that’s pretty far down our project list at the moment. Nonetheless, we love our rustic wood floors. Now, in addition to our wood beams, ceilings, and floors, we also had wood paneling lining just about every wall in our cottage. Wood paneling that made the space feel claustrophobic, dark, and really just blended in with all of the other wood, taking the much deserved attention away from the beautifully crafted wood beams and floors.

We do not hate the wood paneling, in some areas it really adds to the cozy cottage feel, but when it was on every single wall in the living and dining space, there were some serious disadvantages that we eventually decided could be aided by some very selective and carefully thought out fresh painting. In addition to the darkness and wood overload that was being felt in the space, the wood paneling was not in the best condition. There were years of sun stains worn into many of the walls from artwork, shelving and furniture that the previous owner had in place.

Now that you know a little bit about our thinking behind our heavy decision to paint the walls here is the big reveal!

What do you think? I can tell you what I think and that is that the space instantly felt brighter and larger! Even though there were some nerves and hesitations with painting the wood walls, we are so happy with the end result! We decided to go with the color Cotton Knit by Behr to keep things light, airy and neutral. Another big decision that we are so happy we went with was to keep the seams from the wood paneling underneath the paint, keeping the unique and cabin-y textural element of the space!

Tips

1- Have a dremel ready to go over the seams. Even with the steadiest of hands, painting around paneling seams is a daunting task that will require some extra time and effort to ensure that paint does not fill the gaps.

2- Knotty wood panels will require some extra priming to avoid them bleeding through your paint job!

3- Take the time to envision the space. Once you paint it is difficult to go back, this is why we decided to paint in stages, making sure that we were happy with the results every step of the way, and avoiding any regrets we may have felt if we did it all in one swoop!

The biggest win of this project is that the beautiful wood beams and ceiling now get the attention they so very much deserve, so the strategic painting of the wood walls actually added character to our home instead of taking away.

Hope you liked seeing the results of our latest cottage project, and stay tuned for more as we have a lot underway!

x, Alexandria