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Living Room Paint

Paint paneling trim a different color or same color for entire room?

5 years ago

We just bought a house and I'm trying to decide how to re-paint the wood paneling in the living room. I know I want to use BM Intense White on the main part of the wall (and throughout most of the main living areas) but can't decide whether the entire room should be one color or I should paint the trim BM Decorator White to break it up a bit. The previous owners painted the trim a darker color than the wall and so its difficult for me to picture the opposite! Also, paint fireplace or leave it alone? I'm leaning toward the latter.

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User

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

I would paint the walls one color and leave the fireplace.

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Comments (8)

cat_ky
5 years ago
Leave the fireplace. It fits in the room. Is that actually paneling, or did someone just frame in parts of the wall over the sheetrock? If that is what was done, I would consider removing all that trim on the walls, fill in the nail holes, sand it and prime it and paint the walls, all a solid color. All that trim and framing are way too busy. Once you get furniture in the room, it seems to me, it would look over busy and not very nice. Nice sized room. Nice fireplace and floors.
Juniper L
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks for your response. It's actual wood paneling, so can't remove it (and I actually like the two dimensional look) but your comment about it looking busy as is makes sense, especially since there will be a very colorful Persian rug on the floor. I think I'll just paint it all the same, light color. That'll definitely make it easier to paint as well. Thank you!
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NO to painting the fireplace. Look at it. See how deep the mortar joints are? Those joints will always be dark because they are recessed, so you will end up with a checkerboard grid that looks awful. Plus, it will be very tedious to paint those joints. Plus, plus, the joints are simply dust catchers. If you had normal joints, it would be different--you'd have a subtle variation in texture. This will look like a huge mistake. See the difference in this photo. Finally: That paneling is surely applied over wallboard. It probably pops off with little trouble leaving wallboard with a few small holes in it from the short paneling nails. Easy to patch and will look better than painted paneling (which, IMHO, is a very mobile home look).
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cat_ky
5 years ago

All the same color should work just fine. It will stop it from looking so busy and allow you to use a lot of colorful accessories.
Juniper L
Original Author
5 years ago
That's a gorgeous room! Makes me consider using super white paint. In any case, using one color and not painting the fireplace is going to make things a lot easier, so I'm glad that's the consensus!
Debbie Downer
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Another vote for paint out the wall trim (include door and window trim) and leave the fireplace. Youll still get some architectural interest from the door /wall/window trim, itll just be more subtle & less in your face.
Terri Lewis
2 years ago
Do you have a photo of the finished product? I’m trying to decide what to do with my paneling trim as well.
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Izzy Mn
2 years ago
Add a white mantle to the fireplace to break up the brick. Or a stained one, depending on your decor. One can be attached to the brick.
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