I don't think it's "tacky" but I can tell you from experience that that stuff isn't the most durable. It also doesn't have deep enough grooves to really look like the actual tongue and groove boards.

If you want to use panels, I'd suggest the MDF variety. It looks much more convincing and doesn't cost much more. We have it in our pantry (painted with oil enamel - SW Pro-Classic) and that stuff is practically indestructible. You could scrub until the cows come home. :o)

We have the particle board variety in our bathroom and while it looks nice, it does look kind of cheap. We are ready to replace it after 3 years.. The surface is still fine but its bulging in places where its gotten wet. That may not be as big of a problem in a kitchen though.

I agree that it might not be the best solution. A neighbor had installed this in her house as her kids had marked up and gouged her lower walls in the hallways. It looked fine going up, but the kids still lived there, so her new paneling got scuffed and gouged pretty quickly. Unfortunatly, once the top layer is damaged, you see the brown mdf board underneath. I don't think there's anyway to repair it and match the paint color and sheen so that it looks good. As worldmom suggests, you're better off buying the kind that you have to paint. It is going to be more work for you in the beginning, but less stress later on as you can touch up at anytime. Or repaint if your color scheme changes. Look into the type that comes pre-primed. That way you only need to topcoat.

I just had the mdf kind installed in the backhall area of my 1952 Cape Cod - love it! Thank you, worldmom, for the suggestion of the SW oil enamel paint. I was a little worried about it getting scuffed by kicking off shoes/boots, etc. as it's a very small, tight hallway up to the kitchen. I will try the SW paint. Oh, and Home Depot sells really nice baseboards and chair rail trim that is grooved to receive the mdf beadboard. Makes installation so easy and neat.

We used vinyl beadboard (Azek) as a wainscot in a bathroom, and once painted it looks and feels (to me) just like wood. Those walls certainly get scrubbed and so far (almost a year, in a house with four less-than-gentle young boys) the paint has held up perfectly. It's white all the way through, so any scratches would not show dark. We also used Azek to trim a window that's in the shower--no problems whatsoever with water.

It's probably not the cheapest option, but I just wanted to throw it out there as a product that we really like.

I should have added that ours is the tongue and groove kind, so it takes a little more time to put up than panels. Our carpenter said it was very easy to work with, though.