Hi, Nearly the entire bottom floor of my house is paneled in beveled-edged pecky cypress paneling. It's stained a dark color and looks very dated. I know this is a common problem, and I've actually liked what I've seen in painted paneling. It's a bit more interesting than drywall, I think. I've heard that pecky cypress is a difficult to find wood, and I've been told that I should try to sell the paneling and drywall rather than spoil it by painting. In fact, I've seen prices around the web for "new" pecky cypress at $14 a board foot. However, when I call around, I can only find one or two people willing to take it, and they only want to give me 1-2 bucks a board (not a foot). This stuff is pristine, too. Have I been mislead about the paneling? I don't mind drywalling, but I don't want to go out of my way to do it, either. I've also considered cutting it down to about 3 feet and drywalling above it, like wainscoting. This has already been done in one room. Thanks for any help.

Aloha, I am looking for some suggestions to improve, not to say fix mind you, and just improve a seriously butchered sheetrock job. I pulled down 3 disintegrating ancient recycled kitchen cabinets from a wall in my art studio to put up more useful shelving. Turns out the cabinets were up and the walls were finished around them. Now I have an approx 4'x8' section of wall covered with bits and pieces of crudely fitting bare sheetrock with none of the 9 'seams' (yes there are 9 of them) taped. There are huge gaps, crumbled corners, bowed seams and tape tails, nothing remotely resembles level with any other piece. I have no desire to really fix this ie remove and replace. I would like to just generally be able to paint over that section and let the stuff on the shelves obscure the hideous wall behind it. I am out of my league here, I know how to do it right but don't know enough how to fix what I would not do :). I just tried an entire container of vinyl spackling but have not come away feeing encouraged. Is that the answer; I just need a whole lot more of spackle to give something to paint over or, is there something else to slap on to create the illusion of a finished wall (rarely seen and going to get pretty banged up anyway – it is a shop.) ;) Mahalo