Painting Wood Paneling in Camp Hill, PA

By Curtis Tankersley, Owner of Just Add Paint. Proudly serving Mechanicsburg and Central PA for over 20 years.

painted wall by Just Add Paint — We love this after photo of the Sherwin-Williams color Indigo Batik on wood paneling.

Every painting project has its challenges.

Sometimes it’s a two-story foyer that requires us to figure out how to reach a ceiling without constructing something that resembles scaffolding for a small suspension bridge. Sometimes it’s drywall that has seen things. And sometimes it’s a bedroom in Camp Hill with old wood paneling, no air conditioning, a one-day deadline, and a request to keep the house from smelling like a paint factory.

This project was the latter.

Fortunately, it was also for a repeat customer we’re very fond of. We had painted her business several years ago, and when she contacted us about transforming a bedroom in her Camp Hill home, we were happy to be back.

There was just one catch.

Well, technically there were several.

Quick Answer: Can You Paint Wood Paneling?

Yes, old wood paneling can absolutely be painted, and painting it can dramatically update a room without the expense and mess of removing the paneling. The key is proper surface preparation. Because most older wood paneling has a smooth, non-porous finish, it should be cleaned, deglossed, and sanded as necessary before applying a high-adhesion primer. Some types of wood paneling may also require a stain-blocking primer to prevent tannins or other discoloration from bleeding through the new paint.

For this Camp Hill project, we deglossed and sanded the paneling, applied a gray-tinted bonding primer, and finished the walls with two coats of Sherwin-Williams Scuff Tuff in Indigo Batik.

The result: old-school wood paneling became a deep-blue Ravenclaw bedroom in a single day.

Magic? No.

Proper prep, good products, a bunch of fans, and a fairly aggressive painting schedule? Yes.

If dry time is not an issue, cabinet primers – Such as Envirolak T9000, offer superior adhesion. They also flex well with wood.

How Much Does It Cost To Paint A Bedroom With Wood Paneling?

This wood paneling room cost around $1000 for a primer + 2 coats on the walls. The trim and the ceiling would have an additional charge.

Painting Wood Paneling Is Not the Same as Painting Drywall

Can you paint wood panel? — Just Add Paint is about to prime and paint this wood panel to modernize this bedroom.

The walls in this bedroom were older wood paneling. And while painting paneling can completely transform a room, it isn’t something you want to approach with a gallon of wall paint and an optimistic attitude.

Older wood paneling tends to have a very smooth, non-porous surface. Paint loves porous surfaces because it can grab onto them. Smooth paneling basically looks at your paint and says, “Good luck with that.”

So proper surface preparation is extremely important.

Before priming, we deglossed and sanded the paneling to create a surface that our primer could properly bond to. Skipping this step can lead to poor adhesion and, eventually, peeling or chipping.

And nobody wants to spend money painting a room only to discover that the walls can later be peeled like a sunburn.

The Primer Problem

Interior painters near Camp Hill, PA 17011 — Progress photo. Sometimes we have to work around furniture. Blue Frog Tape helps us avoid “filling the gaps” with wood paneling.

Normally, for a difficult surface like this, we would reach for one of the high-adhesion primers we use during our cabinet refinishing process.

There were two problems with that plan.

First, our preferred cabinet primer has a fairly strong odor. That’s manageable in many situations, but this was an occupied home and keeping the odor level down was important.

Second, we needed to finish the entire bedroom in one day.

That meant we needed a primer with excellent adhesion, reasonable odor levels, and a very fast recoat time.

No pressure.

For this project, we decided to try the newer Sherwin-Williams ProBlock Modified Oil-Based Primer, a low-VOC, low-odor primer. We had it tinted gray to help with coverage under the very dark finish color.

Now, we’ve used enough coatings over the years to know that the words “low odor” on a can and actual low odor aren’t always on speaking terms—particularly when oil-based products are involved.

But in this case?

It really was low odor.

Like, surprisingly low odor.

Even better, ProBlock has a very fast dry time. Sherwin-Williams lists its dry time as about an hour under appropriate conditions. Because we wanted to give it a little extra insurance—and because we prefer not to conduct adhesion experiments in our customers’ bedrooms—we gave it about 2 hours before moving on.

The primer bonded well to the properly prepared paneling and gave us the foundation we needed for our finish coats.

Would we say it has quite the same adhesion properties as our go-to cabinet primer? Probably not.

Was it more than adequate for this application while solving our odor and scheduling problems?

Absolutely.

It performed well enough that we expect to use it again when circumstances call for a low-odor, fast-drying bonding primer.

And Thankfully, No Tannin Drama

Another potential issue when painting older wood paneling is tannin bleed.

Natural compounds in wood can sometimes migrate through coatings and create yellow or brown discoloration. Depending on the type of paneling and wood underneath, this can turn what appeared to be a straightforward painting project into a game of “Where did THAT brown spot come from?”

Fortunately, the Painting Gods decided we had enough going on that day.

We didn’t experience any significant tannin bleed, so our main concern was adhesion rather than stain blocking.

We happily accepted the win.

From Old Paneling to Ravenclaw Blue

Interior House Painters near Camp Hill, PA — A little sconce lighting can go a long way with deeper colors, such as Sherwin-Williams Indigo Batik in Scuff Tuff Matte.

Once the primer had cured sufficiently, it was time for the fun part.

And this customer did not choose beige.

The bedroom belongs to a huge Harry Potter—and specifically Ravenclaw—fan, so the color selection was Sherwin-Williams Indigo Batik (SW 7602).

Indigo Batik is a rich, deep blue that completely changed the personality of the room. Instead of trying to make the paneling disappear by painting it a safe neutral, the darker color turned the texture and lines of the paneling into part of the room’s character.

We were big fans of the choice.

For the finish paint, we used Sherwin-Williams Scuff Tuff Interior Waterbased Enamel in Matte.

We use Scuff Tuff frequently because it provides excellent durability and cleanability, making it particularly well suited for bedrooms, hallways, family rooms, and other areas that experience actual human beings.

And despite the “Matte” label, Scuff Tuff Matte has a little more sheen than people may expect. We think of its appearance as being closer to a traditional eggshell finish.

That makes it a nice compromise: not overly shiny, but durable enough to stand up to everyday life.

One More Problem: The Room Had No Air Conditioning

Because apparently the paneling, odor restrictions, dark color, and one-day deadline weren’t enough variables, this bedroom was also the only room in the house without air conditioning.

In September.

Humidity matters when you’re trying to apply multiple coats of paint in a single day. Higher humidity can slow evaporation and extend dry times, which wasn’t particularly helpful when our schedule already had very little wiggle room.

So we improvised.

We set up one of our XPOWER fans in the hallway to move cooler, drier conditioned air toward the bedroom. We then placed an exhaust fan in the bedroom window to encourage the warmer, more humid air to move outside.

Essentially, we gave the bedroom its own temporary weather system.

And it worked surprisingly well.

We also ran our XPOWER air scrubber, which provided additional air circulation while passing the room air through its filtration system, including an activated-carbon filter to help reduce odors.

Between the fan, exhaust setup, and air scrubber, we were able to keep air moving through the room without simply blowing a hurricane directly across freshly painted walls.

Primer + Two Finish Coats + One Day

With our drying conditions under control, we were able to apply the gray ProBlock primer, allow it adequate drying time, and then apply two coats of Indigo Batik Scuff Tuff.

And yes, we got it all done in one day.

By the end of the project, the room was put back together and ready for our homeowner.

That might sound like a simple bedroom repaint, but projects like this are a good example of why the product and preparation choices matter just as much as the color.

Painting wood paneling successfully required us to think about surface preparation and adhesion, primer compatibility, potential tannin bleed, odor inside an occupied home, dry and recoat times, humidity and air movement, durability of the final coating, and—of course—getting everything finished before we wore out our welcome.

Fortunately, everything came together.

Another Camp Hill Painting Project in the Books

Can you paint wood panel walls? — Just Add Paint completion photo of a painted panel room in Camp Hill, PA, with Sherwin-Williams Indigo Batik

This was a small project by square footage, but it checked a surprising number of technical boxes.

More importantly, we got to work again for a customer we genuinely enjoy working with—and helped turn an outdated paneled bedroom into a much more colorful space for a serious Ravenclaw fan.

We’ll take Indigo Batik over builder beige any day.

If you have an older home in Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg, Harrisburg, or the surrounding Central Pennsylvania area with wood paneling, dated wall colors, or another surface you’re not quite sure how to tackle, Just Add Paint can help determine the right preparation, primer, and finish for the job.

Because sometimes the difference between “old wood paneling” and “pretty cool bedroom” is just a little sanding, the right primer, two coats of paint…

…and an unnecessarily elaborate collection of fans.