How do I prepare paneling to paint?

Seal the grooves with drywall patching compound. Lightly sand all the paneling to roughen for paint. Use a stain blocking primer like BIN or Zinsser 123. Then paint with your color.

Make sure to use a stain blocking primer first. Not sure if you want hide the grooves in the paneling or not

Lowes's makes a primer paint mix that is amazing for painting paneling. It really does work great, I used it in a school office about 5 years ago and it still looks great. It may take a couple of coats but great stuff

I painted my paneling years ago. I used a primer basecoat (Kilz was popular at the time), however I prepped my walls first with a vinegar and water wash. I let them dry for a few days and then primed and painted them. Behr has a pretty solid paint with primer added. I tried it recently on a project, but I still needed multiple coats. For my paneling, I didn't seal my grooves, because I do not mind the look- however, if you try to fill the lines, I recommend that you do not use dap. Dap will shrink as it dries, and it will pull/shift when your paneling moves with your home (*if you aren't on a solid slab foundation). Also, keep in mind that anything with a higher gloss will show all your imperfections on the wall, so try to go with a paint finish that is less than satin. My paneling has a wood grain texture, so it showed up pretty bad with semi-gloss, not as bad with satin, but barely noticable with eggshell finish.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your project :)

Mir is pretty much correct on the grooves but why are you painting the paneling? Is it because, like me, you hate paneling! And you would like to have nice walls like in normal houses. I live in a 54 year old trailer that was badly abused ok neglected. The already painted paneling was a baby s**t yellow thru out the place. Yes my husband and myself desided to treat the walls as if they were regular old walls. First I went around filling the grooves with drywall mud but I didn't fill them all the way. Instead I made strategicly groove filling decisions as to which one was going to be filled some times two spots in one groove. It came out looking like (for example) the walls on a Mexican restaurant with plaster gone showing the bricks in various places. Then the hubby rented or borrowed a mud sprayer and sprayed the walls and ceiling semi covered with mud which we knocked down.

Knocking down is the term used by the guys in the business when they would run a large blade over the freshly sprayed walls. I'm sure you've seen this style before. After allowing this to dry thoughly we then started painting, we used Behr semi gloss paint from Home Depot. It's a bit more expensive but it does have the primer built in and it's a dream when it comes to washing it. Semi gloss paint shows off the knocked down texture very well whereas the satin does not allow for seeing the texture. I am going to try to post some pics to show you.

Anyway, if you like our way or even part of it please let us know how it came out. Ibvivi2@yahoo.com

We textured and painted our entire trailer for $146. That's the kitchen and living room bathroom and bedroom.