Playroom Makeover

An alternate title to this post could have easily been "Peace out, paneling!" 

When we bought the house one of the first comments I made was "that paneling has got to go!"...yet here we were, nearly 5 years later and we hadn't done a thing about it.  Brian enjoys painting projects and has done other areas of the house for us, but I think we were intimidated by the paneling.  We knew we didn't want to invest in the process of ripping it out and replacing it, but we were also nervous to just paint over it...what if it looked worse than when we started?  There were too many unknowns.  And then there were shelves...LOTS of shelves.  Half of a wall is all built in bookcases which is great for storing toys, not so great for trying to paint. 

Let's start with some before pictures shall we? (don't mind the photobombing kids) I liked to refer to this wall as the place where wood came to die an unsightly death. (sometimes Brian calls me dramatic...I deny such accusations)

Wood + dark brick + more wood + too many toys = ICK

 

 

 

opposite wall of the paneling

So, as you can see, the dark paneling combined with the dark brick wall on the opposite wall gave the room a very enclosed feel.  We both loved the brick so obviously that wasn't going to go....so we decided to wave goodbye to the paneling.  We had talked in the winter about possibly hiring someone to do the painting (see paragraph above about our insecurities in doing it ourselves.  By "ourselves" I of course mean Brian)  Then when Brian injured his shoulder in the spring, that pretty much sealed the deal that we would outsource this project. 

And now, I present to you the after!

 

 

 

 

The pictures don't even do it justice, it seriously looks like a whole new room!  (It also helps that when I had to remove stuff off the shelves for the painter, I secretly boxed up a bunch and stuffed them into the attic instead of putting them back out...shhh....the kids haven't even noticed they're gone!)    We are SO happy with how it turned out, and the painter said he had no issues going over the paneling aside from it needing some extra primer.  I also decided to leave the curtains (which had come with the house) off of the windows and I think that makes a big difference. 

We went with Sherwin Williams Perfect Greige for the walls and the shelves are a white that we already had.  Here is a before/after side by side shot to hopefully give you a better view: