Painting - Texturing paneling with plaster to paint

We would like to brighten up the paneling in our living rm & upstairs hallway. The white paneling was stained 3 shades of stain, giving the appearance of nice wood tone, the previous owners of our home liked dark colors. We would like to use a textured look & paint over that! Helpful hints are most welcome...

Hello & welcome to the forums. There are some faux painting techniques that might work well for this application, I'll move this over to Painting in the Decorate section of the forum hopefully someone there can give you some insight. Good luck.

If the paneling is glossy, you may need to use a deglosser and probably sand. Ugh.
I have painted over stained paneling with a good latex primer, and used a latex semi-gloss for color. We first patched any nail holes or imperfections and sanded the patches after it was thoroughly dry before priming. Looks great. Good luck:)

Hi again, I forgot to address the texturizing. As you probably know there are texturizing paints available for purchase.
I applied joint compound to my bathroom walls giving it texture and interest to my desire. Then, I primed, and glazed. It is beautiful. You can get different looks by playing around with the compound on separate boards....trowl it on, brush it, dab at it with a plastic bag or roll it. Give the compound plenty of time to dry before you prime and paint. Have fun....you will luv this stuff.