How to Make Wood Paneling Work
Happy New Year, everyone! We’ve had a busy few weeks at the new house between the holidays and projects. I’ll get into the details later, but now that the major issues are addressed, we get to start on a fun project!! Updating the basement is our first project because we currently don’t use the space. Keep reading to see design inspiration and how we plan to make wood paneling work.
Colin’s brother, Pat, came to visit us last weekend and the two of them updated our kitchen and bathroom outlets to GFCI. It’s nice to know that we’re not going to blow up the house anytime we break out the blender. They also wired our main floor for cable and ran some sort of wire so the office gets better WiFi?! Colin is really happy with it and that’s all that matters. While they were working on that, I started prepping the basement for its transformation from dirty unused space to funky rumpus room.
Below are photos of what the basement currently looks like. Lots of yellow. So so so much yellow. Lots of wood paneling. Lots of tile floor. For both budget and aesthetic reasons, we want to make wood paneling work down here. Like I said in this post, I am really into keeping some elements of a house built in 1958. And mid century houses had wood paneled basements with kitschy bars!
Our Basement
The main problem we are facing down here is an extreme lack of light. I don’t know what voodoo the photographer did to make the pictures so bright, but in reality the basement is much darker. I know what you’re thinking – “uhh Bridget, it’s a basement. Of course it’s dark.” Obviously it’s not going to get natural light, but the current lighting is abysmal. And that makes it very hard to choose a paint color. And I want to choose a paint color before we decide on new flooring. And I want to put in new flooring before we decide whether or not to keep ALL the wood paneling. And I obviously 😉 can’t decorate until I know if the wood paneling is staying. Please help!
Where do we go when we need design help?! Pinterest of course. Turns out that pinterest has a bunch of ideas on how to make wood paneling work. Take a scroll through these images and weigh in on what color you would paint our yellow basement walls in the comment section!
Inspiration for How to Make Wood Paneling Work
After seeing these photos, what color would you paint our basement walls? Should we keep all the wood paneling? Should we paint only some of the wood paneling? Our current plan is to paint the yellow walls a shade of green, but it’s hard to find a shade that works in dim light. I’m thinking that replacing or repainting the ceiling tiles in a brighter shade of white will help.
As for flooring, any suggestions are welcome and appreciated! We are between waterproof vinyl tiles that look like wood and speckle painting the floor. Both options would be lighter than the absolutely gorgeous brown and tan tiles that currently grace the floor. The inspiration photos all had great rugs, so we will probably need to get a few of those. If you have any other ideas for us, please let me know below in the comments 🙂
