How thick is it? Carefully pry off the half-round and measure.

I'd consider reusing it as flooring or making furniture and cabinetry out of it if it's too dark for wall covering.

I can't think of anything more disrespectful to the stewardship of an old home than destroying historic fabric for fashion. Find a nondestructive way to be trendy, please. Your home's future owners will be grateful.

This is a very difficult time for me. My otherwise healthy and dynamic 60 year-old husband passed away recently from brain tumors.The grief and stress in my life is too great. I'm having to sell the dream home that we built in 2005 because it's more than I can maintain by myself. I have to hire a contractor to do anything for me at the new house. If I'm going to get dissed for asking questions, I'll leave the forum.

dyhgarden:

I meant no disrespect and if you felt disrespected please accept my apologies.

I try to give the most honest advice I can here and I struggle with my tone.

Not knowing the exact situation, I can only offer the general rule of thumb that taking reclaimed wood and milling it into flooring results in about 25% loss (waste and scrap). You would end up with 75 sq ft of installed floor if you started with 100 sq ft of paneling. This is with the assumption that it's plank paneling, not frame & panel (like raised panels).

In any case, for a proper finish it will need to be sanded to remove that unknown finish.

The most economical way to treat valuable salvage lumber for flooring is to spline it together instead of milling T&Gs. Splines are ripped out of 1/4" plywood, and each board has two grooves, the splines are the tongues.

Casey

You said your house was new. I think you should live in it for some time. I would enhance the lighting before I would remove the paneling. So sorry for your loss.

If you take paneling off the walls, will you have a massive wall repair project awaiting you? We did when we removed 1980s pine paneling from 1919 plaster walls.

OP and everyone who may not remember, the old house forum was set up a while back specifically for discussion by people w more of a philosophy of preservation & renovation vs the more usual remodeling - so yes you will definitely see that philosophy expressed here.

We are passionate here but its good to be reminded that theres a real person out there and we don't know what kind of day theyre having. So I thank you for letting us know what is going on with you and I too am sorry to hear of your loss. Honestly I cant imagine how rough that must be.

About the wood, if it wasnit original, if it was that 50s-60s style knotty pine or something like that I would say have at it but if it truly is as beautiful as it sounds I too would suggest looking at alternatives not just out of some philosophy that "original is better," but because I truly believe that such architectural details improve the value of a house both esthetically and in dollars and cents terms. Since they're not harvesting much more old growth pine the cost of it has actually gotten quite high (you know - supply and demand) and its gorgeous wood. So its definitely worth brainstorming to determine a) what is it you don't like about it and b) is there a way to make it work for you.

What about just removing the patina (dark) and refinishing with a clear finish so you can see the grain and have a brighter more red-brown-gold wood tone (not polyurethane bc thatll turn that hideous dark yellow) Maybe not exactly what a purist might do, but certainly better than removing it altogether and honestly, if its so oppressively dark that you cant make out the grain I sure would be tempted to do thatt myself Not as if it wouldn't darken again in 70 years- hahah! Can you post a picture of it - either here or woodworking forum is also knowledgeable about refinishing.

Unless its over 3/4 inch thick it wouldn't really be appropriate for flooring - agree with above poster that cabinetry or some such would be a higher better use of it.

I went to the architectural salvage warehouse to find 6/6 original wood windows and reclaimed 2 1/4" oak flooring to use in the sunroom. A past owner put vinyl windows and parquet tiles in there sometime in the 1970s.

I asked the man (who was building a table from reclaimed heart pine) if there was a way to lighten the family room paneling and preserve the grain so that it still shows through. I realize that pine darkens over time. That's when he suggested using it as flooring the sunroom and prompted me to ask the question if anyone had tried that.

I was also looking for a 1930s kitchen sink since the kitchen was gutted in the 1990s. Someone installed an island with a sink and dishwasher in the middle of the tiny kitchen that leaves only 1 1/2 feet of clearance on three sides! It also blocks the 1990s fridge that can't be removed until the island is removed. I've since located several kitchen sinks on Etsy. The kitchen is a complete gut job as nothing is original.

I've found a local company to restore the original wood windows in the rest of the house so I can have the aluminum storm windows removed.

My contractor (a neighbor at my current house for ten years) is a huge fan of Rehab Addict, so he's on board. He's also an engineer and our first task is to fix the foundation. Fortunately, it's leaning uphill, not downhill toward the basement.

I'm also saving the 10x18 garage that is leaning over and has two huge foundation cracks that can't be repaired. That repair is also expensive as we have to jack it up, build a new foundation and slide the building back in place. Someone replaced the original garage doors with a mess that doesn't open well.

I'm the THIRD owner in only two years (correction: it's really been a little over one year and the house fell out of contingency several times, too)! This house has stumped previous owners. The last owners lived there only six months. They installed recessed lights in the family room in an attempt to brighten it, but I think that was a bad idea. I prefer sconces to wash the walls with light.

With the snow/ice here over the week, the photos I've taken are truly too dark to post. I don't think I should used the realtor's photos since they don't belong to me.

Some feature photos (found a google street view of the house last summer)

All of the solid wood doors and original knobs are in place.

The bathroom sink looks 1950s to me...correct or not?

Is the ceiling medallion plaster?

This is the only photo of the paneling that is light enough to see the details (I had the front door open to get enough light to take the picture).

I tore out some 1940-installed pine panelling in my 1920 house and repurposed it into baseboards, a medicine cabinet, drawer boxes....

If you want to lighten it up ... give it a base layer of clear shellac and then paint it or whitewash it or use a semi-transparent stain so it's lighter but you can see the grain. The shellac will make it easy for some future owner to remove the paint by filling the pores and cracks - it's a "release layer".

There are unfortunately heat vents, cut into the paneling, about one third down from the ceiling, where one might want to hang photos, etc. There are other heat vents in floor. Something to sort out, but it messes up the paneling even more so to remove them as we can't patch the rectangles with the same paneling.

My contractor and I met today on how to keep the paneling "as is" and brighten the room. He suggested a bay window on the southeast wall. There is an open doorway to the sunroom on one side of the fireplace. There's a window on the other side, also to the sunroom, so he's going to make that an open doorway to balance the wall and provide more light. We'll reuse the removed window in the new addition on the back of the house.

I'm going to try Soy-Gel to remove the black paint from the bricks (last owner did this) on the fireplace and if it works, that should help. If I can't remove the black paint, we'll tile over it.

We're both excited because it looks like the downstairs powder room and upstairs bath have oak flooring beneath the vinyl. We went into the basement and it looks like the sunroom floor, beneath the 70s parquet, is porch wood.

My contractor is going to have wood grilles made to add to the already replaced windows in the sunroom so that they more closely resemble the original windows.

He gave me the name of a man who can restore/refinish original tubs and sinks for me, too. I'll head back to the architectural salvage warehouse to see if I can find a kitchen sink and a clawfoot tub for my downstairs master addition. The upstairs tub will be restored.

We're going to restore the old garage (10'x18') to be my garden shed and add a drive-through porte cochere off the side of the house, using a flat roof with balustrade on top, to match the era of the house. That should solve my need for covered parking.

I'm very excited after the meeting.

Porte cochere ... a wonderful idea that more houses should have.

Great results today! There are oak floors beneath the kitchen and powder room vinyl. The floor in the powder room has never been finished with any stain or poly. Looks brand new.

Thanks for sharing. Keep us informed.

I know this post started regarding the paneling. From what I can see in the small picture it looks to me, that the paneling is not heart pine, but white pine. Heart pine comes from various species of old growth southern yellow pine trees (from the southern east coast) White pine mainly comes from the north east. White pine still widely available and not as much in demand as heart pine and is much softer, not a good flooring material.

dyhgarden, I have spent many wonderful days in this house as a guest over the past 20 years. I can give you some additional information if that would be helpful.