To paint or not to paint?

My house is so ugly. It's all wood, walls, floors and ceilings and it gives off this yucky orange glow. All my furniture is wood, we bought it when we lived at our old place, it's the same colour as the rest of the house and it just blends in to the walls. If I'd known I'd live here I would have bought a different style of furniture.

So my dilemma is whether or not to paint the walls. I'm torn because once it's done we will never be able to strip it all back BUT I crave colour. I saw it done successfully on Renovation Rescue once but whether it would look that good if I did it is another story.

I'm also considering putting some plaster over the wood panelling so that if we want to we can just pull it off and have wooden walls again. But that seems like more work (and money) than painting.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Hey Tinks,

We painted our walls & ceiling in this house prior to moving in b/c the previous owner liked a mediterranean look but everything was so yellow! Even the ceiling was an off white!? Anyway, our house looks sooooo much better and light & bright so I would highly recommend painting it plus that is the cheapest option :) (p.s. we got a friend to paint for us & he charged us $6k)

This may sound stupid, but what about hanging some fabric over the walls, or doing some textured blocks? It would just be a matter of making sure the fabric is pulled taut, so until you cane up close, you'd think it was a painted wall!! And then if the kids dirty it you can just take it off and wash it!

Either that or LOTS of pictures!

my MIl had a similar issue, except her lounge room has brick walls.. all 4 of them, so they plastered the 'feature' wall, and just hung large, bright paintings around! it did the trick for them!

My hubby has said before that plaster isn't as expensive as people think - so maybe look into that option, yes its not as cheap as paint because you are doing the plaster and then still painting, and yes it'll be more work for the same reason, but if it saves you from making an undoable change to the wood, then it might be worth it!

Having said that - you sound as if you really don't like it, do you think that'll change in the future???

Thanks ladies.

I've decided to paint my bedroom to see how it looks before going the whole hog. I was also thinking about putting plaster up on the top half of the walls and leaving the bottom wood. That way I could brighten up the place but still have that rustic feel.

You're right Ocean Princess, plaster is cheap but I want to do the whole house which would be quite exxy unless I did it in stages.

Maybe check out your wall paper options too...it's back in fashion again and there are some amazing textured options...could be a good compromise, even if you just do some walls.