Spackle will chip off and show nail rust from moisture coming through the wood. Much depends on how much movement the house undergo's. If oppisite side of walls are sheetrocked and not cracking,sheetrock would apeal to the majority. Wall paper is available to memic almost any surface emaginable. The wall as is appeals to many and is by far easiest if you like it. If you keep the boards,don't try and make them look new. Just remove most paper and cheese cloth,pull only nails that have exposed heads making them quick and easy to remove. Stiff brush and vacum dust from boards,vacum ceiling,windows and floor,then wet mop floor to prevent trash floating to stick to finish while it's wet. Choose a clear finish you can handle in gloss level you like and put it on. I'm thinking semi-gloss,oil base varnish (not polyurathane) rolled and/or brush applied. Bring in a small amount of rusty barn tin,maybe a faux rough beam or two,some window film in stained or water glass and start looking for furniture and accent items. The doors,door trim,baseboards and windows can realy make it complete. What you do with them depends on what type you have. Woo Hooo,this gonna be fun. Sorry bout that. Any of that help?

I wish I had looked at this post sooner....you have the den from my precious house. I wish I had pics to post. We filled the cracks in between the panels and then papered it with a beautiful linen look paper. It was vinyl coated and very rich looking. You couldn't tell that it wasn't linen even when you were really close to it. Our brick was exactly like yours. The room looked so beautiful after we covered all that paneling. We added a floor to ceiling bookcase on one wall out of dark stained wood to match the rest of the trim in the room and the other builtins. You might really want to think of doing htis instead of painting. The look was much more elegant , at least that is what everyone said and I agree. Hope this helps. Caroline

Nothing, Linen. I'm not home right now, so I can't get the mortar in and the replacement bricks in until I get back, and that may depend on the weather. I may be stuck in Boston until Thursday. But my electrician is coming on Wed., whether I'm there or not, and he'll get the outlets in and the kitchen fired up; then comes my plumber, who is a neighbor, to get the plumbing hooked up and going, and then it will be done! Only thing left for me will be figuring out where best to put everything in the new cabinets. I'm going to try to make a clever cutting board holder hanging off the end of one of the cabinets so that they are easy to get to. I'm a bit nervous about doing it because I'll be doing mitered corners and routing out the frame, so hopefully I won't destroy the under-trim of the upper cabinets when I take it off, which I have to do to make this. If it doesn't work, I'll just put the original under-trim back on - if it isn't destroyed! I should definitely have pics up next week, of not sooner. Depends on when my plumber comes. He puts the dishwasher and range in. I'll be so glad when this is done.

Cran, I am usually the one who needs a fire lit under me! Arapaho I also gravitate towards greens and yellows and those are the predominant colors downstairs. I made a concerted effort upstairs to use blue and white and taupe in the main living area and secondary bedrooms. Tina, part of the reason I wanted to leave off the chair skirt is because I wasn’t sure I have enough fabric for it. A large plaid or pattern repeat means just a club chair skirt can take 3 yards of fabric! So after I saw the bed I called the upholsterer and told him to leave off the skirt and change the legs to turned ones. It was a question of necessity as much as happy coincidence.