Friday, June 8, 2007

Help For the Home Improvement Challanged, Please?

We are set to move on July 14th! Everything has gone so smoothly, despite the sellers trying to force us out of our contract because they received a better offer. We are locked in and have done everything on our part. Our agent said their agent calls every day trying to break off the contract, and thankfully we covered all the bases.

The people buying our house sold theirs yesterday so they will be lifting the contingency as soon as all their contracts are signed on their end of things. That will move things along quicker than we planned!

We had a home inspection at our new home and just being there again made me so grateful and excited that it is going to be ours! It is a place that we can have even more room to entertain. I walked the property all the way to the end and I had to stop and rest before I could finish....it is a pretty steep hill in parts and is over 2 acres. I won't have to worry about going to the gym, I'll just do a couple of laps out back!

My question to you clever, creative people is this...can I put a wallpaper border over paneling? #1's bedroom is in the lower level and is paneled (it's not outdated, it's vintage, right?). I plan to paint the paneling, and we found a great border, but it's a little expensive. I don't want to special order it and put a section up only to find out it looks awful. I think it can be done, especially with regular wallpaper I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with this.

Thanks for leaving your 2 cents!

8 comments:

Stephanie said...

I think paint will do wonders alone. Don't put in the expense and aggravation for border. They have seen the house and bought it as is. They will make it their own.

Stephanie said...

Wait. Is this for the new house or the old house??? Sorry. If it is for your house, I still don't think border is a good idea.

Melissa said...

It is for the new house. I'm trying to do a little something to "jazz" up #1's room but you're right, paint may do the trick!

Krazy Klingers said...

Laney Bugs room is paneled and we painted it white on the top and sage green on the bottom and put up chair rail and you can hardly tell it's paneling. Paint does do wonders!

The Gang's Momma! said...

Paint over paneling does amazing things for a room. Just clean it well, prime it well (we like Kilz) and use a couple coats of the paint. We did do a border over paneling once, but another thing I saw once was to do a stencil on the vertical using the already established pattern of the paneling. Like, every third board that is 3" wide, stencil a floral or pattern - almost like striping the room. If you don't understand that garbled explanation, email me and I'll try to do a better job. It ended up looking quite nice, and can be easier to "redo" than border over paint and paneling . . .

Mrs. C said...

I agree with Stephanie. You might be surprised what a difference the paint alone makes. Simms mom painted over paneling in their NJ home and it changed the whole look of the room.

Hands-Free Heart said...

Most of my house is paneled, and we've painted several rooms. We've also done border, and it looks great... it's been up for almost 6 years.

I also have found Kilz primer to be the best, but be sure to get the stainblocking one (Kilz Total One). You'll need 2 coats of primer, then 1 or 2 coats of paint.

I've found that the best tools to use are painting pads, such as Speed Painter. They get into the cracks much better than anything else. I've tried rollers, various corner tools, bristle brushes & foam brushes. All are a pain to use except the painting pads.

Another thing I've done is to use 3 subtle colors and painted vertical stripes... I was experimenting, but it ended up turning out great. I love it!

Say Anything said...

We painted our paneling in our bedroom and I love the texture it gives to the room. I think the border would be overkill. Borders aren't really the hottest thing goin', you know? Hold off buying border until you've painted. KILZ primer is awesome! We've used it many many times. Can't wait to see the house?