Advice for Painting/Staining Knotty Pine Wood Paneling

[Nicole Barthelme]

Hello there! I'm new to this forum and so far quite impressed with everything I've read, but this is my first post! Recently purchased a 1975 chalet-style house with ALL knotty pine T&G wood paneling. While the house is very well maintained and I love the campy-vibe, we are looking to tone down the color of the walls. I have done some tests in closets with different techniques (Rubio monocoat in a few tones, and then BM Arborcoat in a few colors) and was thinking the BM arbor coat would be the best method (ideally the semi-transparent or solid), I was told that the arbor coat isn't suitable for indoors due to fumes.

Trying to achieve somewhat of a "whitewashed" (or should I say taupe-washed) look, but without the pink undertone. Definitely want something more modern as we are painting the fireplace brick black. I've included a picture of the existing walls as well as quick photoshop I did to show the tone that would be ideal.

Does anyone have a suggestion of a paint/stain that we can achieve this with that wouldn't require as many steps (ie, rubbing on with a towel and wiping off extra, etc) as we have to do the work ourselves and will require scaffolding, etc.

Existing Walls.jpgInspo Wall Color.jpg

[Richard Coers]

No way to do it without putting in the work. A white glaze would probably be the easiest material to work with because it has more working time compared to thin paint or stain. Maintaining a common look across the entire room will be the difficult part.

[Tom M King]

I know someone that painted that in a kitchen. In Winter it shrunk up enough that she had to have it all caulked and repainted again. Every joint opened up enough to show the wood in the grooves. I never saw it since then, but I doubt it looks good several years later. Hers was the old molded edge kind seen a lot in the 1950's and 60s homes, so some different than this, but I still wouldn't bother.

[Cameron Wood]

I would experiment with a stain "White Birch", "Country White", or the like. Something with a bit of green will kill the red-ish tone. Don't be afraid to thin and mix.
Brush on, wipe off excess as you go. Scrub the paneling with a stiff brush beforehand, possibly with a cleaner if the wood is greasy at all.
Mask the darker wood, try to do sections the length of boards to avoid uneven laps in the stain.

[Nicole Barthelme]

Thanks all - we def aren't afraid to put in the work for the right outcome, but I just was holding out hope that their was some product that would work well WITHOUT multi-steps and without just painting it all plain white. Will def look into white glazes or stains and go get some sample pots to try out. Good thing all of the closets have paneling so plenty of spots for testing!

[Bill Howatt]

Virtually all exterior products, not just BM, have anti-fungal type chemicals in them that makes them unsuitable for interior use.
I just got through doing a lot of my cedar house exterior with opaque stain and a problem here and there was the shrinkage of the T&G boards exposing little slivers of color that weren't visible when opaque stain first applied. This wasn't a huge problem but it did happen but was likely made worse because I'd used a white oil-based primer that probably "ran" into the cracks better than the thicker top-coat which was a brown color. Also, the outdoor variations in moisture are probably more severe than interior variations.
Good luck, that's a big job given the height involved.

[Mel Fulks]

Yes, primer brushed on in a stingy up and down manner .

[John TenEyck]

I would try a glaze or gel stain. Here's MinWax's Simply White:




Or Zar Beach House.

FWIW, I really like how it looks now.


John

[Tom M King]

I would figure out some brighter lighting and not get into painting those wooden walls. We had the same problem with an all wood interior lake house we bought for a rental. Some suggested painting, but after figuring out brighter lighting, everyone thinks it's okay and even really like it now.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

+1 for Glaze. If you want the wood to show through without striping the existing varnish, glazing is the only technique I know of. The technique for glazing whole walls that I learned is to apply the glaze with an airless or pressure pot sprayer followed by dabbing with crumpled thin plastic or sculpting with a dry brush, feather, or special roller. Creating a consistent look over a large area is very tricky. The mixture of the glaze and the timing of the application and sculpting processes are critical. I would work on one board at a time, glaze the whole board then move on to the next board, Maintaining a consistent look takes practice. We created some very funny looking rooms on our first tries.

The oil base Benjamin Moore product I am familiar with has been replaced with this Acrylic version.
https://media.benjaminmoore.com/WebS...405_TDS_US.pdf

Old Master still makes an oil based product. I have better results with solvent based products when doing a color wash.
https://myoldmasters.com/product/tinting-glaze

Another +1 for not using an exterior product. Some paint products are labeled interior / exterior. As Bill points out an "exterior use" labeled product will contain ingredients that you do not want in your house.