Painting - painting over false wood paneling?

My wife and I are about to do a major repaint of a 40 year old house we own as a rental unit. I'm very handy with a sprayer (after learning it the hard way on my own house two years ago) and have a decent low end professional airless sprayer -- so it's going to be a prep, mask, and spray proposition.

Problem is this is an early sixties style: about 1/4th of all the walls are this dark natural finish wood paneling; it's the stuff that isn't real planks but big sheets of some sort of composite (thin plywood???) that has fake grooves in the surface and a slight "bowing" of each fake plank in a rather week attempt to make them look like real hardwood planks. I agree with my wife that the effect and look and feel is rather dated.
But she wants me to paint over it.

My take on painting over it is that it'll be tough and may look like crap.
My reasoning is that (having once sprayed over dark woodfinish kitchen cabinet) that dark wood finish will present two problems: (a) it's gloss but not flat so it'll be a ***** to prep the surface good enough for a reliable bond all around (b) it may bleed through water based primer and have me putting on three coats of primer just to seal the brown under.
The main problem is subjective: I'm afraid that it'll just look cheap -- that instead of looking like cheap paneling trying to look like hardwood it'll look like it'll look like someone sprayed white paint over cheap panling trying to look like hardwood.

My wife suggested that to get around that we could level the surface of the paneling with some sort of filler (mud? Spackle) and get rid of the fake joints between the fake planks. My take on that it that it would be a nightmare to get any mud to bond well to the shiny wood finish surface and that if anyone ever leaned on the wall and flexed the panel the filler would crack like the St.Andreas fault.

So I'm inclined to paint everything else and leave the panels (which, though dated, aren't in bad shape) alone.

Does anyone here agree or disagree with my take on it?

Does anyone here have suggestions of easy ways to refinish or cover of convert those old 60s panels?

Alex
Direct email replies also appreciated.

acensor,
You can paint over paneling, what you would want to do is thoroughly clean of any dirt, grease, or oil then lightly sand the surface with a 220 grit paper, re-nail where needed, putty the nail holes and apply an oil based primer/undercoater for adhesion and stain-blocking, then you can paint over with a quality wall paint of your choice, or wallpaper (filling the grooves for paper)

To fill the grooves, before you prime apply joint compound in the grooves and wipe clean, don't try to build it up but wipe it smooth with the wall, 2 maybe 3 applications will be nesasary. Sand to smooth. To keep the JOINTS from cracking you can use caulking at the joints instead of the mud, this will leave a groove every 4 feet but that will look better than a crack (for wallpaper, I would fill these with mud also) Also caulk the trim and corners, use a quality latex PAINTABLE caulk and wipe smooth with a wet finger and clean up with a wet rag. Allow all applications to dry thoroughly before proceeding.

Hope this helps,



[Edited by Chipfo on 12-10-00 at 04:07]

Thanks Chip!


Your response raises a couple of questions:

1) I use a decent quality airless sprayer and based on my one pass experience of using oil based primer that's a lot more difficult (and nasty with the fumes and solvent) to work with than water based. Is there any alternative to that? (I suspect you're right that water-based may be looking for bleeding problems)




As for the grooves: I'm not sure what applying joint compound does (don't even know what it is yet, really).
You say not to even try building them up to level ... but what good does the compound do?

You can roll on the primer to cut down on fumes, but you will still need good ventilation or you could use something like Kilz Total One, it is a water based primer that has good bonding capabilities, just be sure to sand with the 220 grit well for added adhesion before you prime, it will not be quite as durable but will work, the stain sealing properties are not that good as I have found out. Another good water based primer is Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3.

When I stated not to build up the joint compound, I meant don't try to bed it out, apply in the groove with a 6 inch taping knife and wipe down smooth with the surface, it will shrink as it dries so more than one coat will be nesasary. Try to keep it clean, so light sanding is all you will need when it is dry. Joint compound is what we use to tape and bed sheetrock joints with, use all purpose ready mix.

I usually spray trim, cabinets, doors, etc and roll walls in new or existing construction.

Hope this helps, post back if you need more info :)