What can be done with a panelled wall?

I have the same issue in my new house-- paneling, paneling everywhere, some painted, some not.

Can you add trim to the paneling to give it a different look? I have paneling in my laundry, painted matte white and I painted laundry-related words on the wall in the gloss version of the same color. It's subtle, but effective, something that could be used in a living room if you found a design you liked.

Can you fill in the cracks in the paneling and smooth out the wall? I did that in my old house and the effect was to give me a bare wall that I could do anything I wanted with.

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/paneling-ideas/?lp=true

https://www.pinterest.com/explore/cover-wood-paneling/?lp=true

You can cover it with wallpaper

If you can still see the space between the wood, you could paint in a color of your choosing the little stripes between the wood strips. It would be a way to bring in your accent colors into the room in a novel way. You don't even have to do all of them, you can decide how far apart it would look good in your room. It doesn't have to be really bright colors, they can be muted if only a hint is wanted.

You could fill in the lines with spackle, let dry and then sand until smooth. Repaint and it won't look like paneling. To save you some time you could put in wainscoting to cover the bottom half with a chair rail to finish it off. You would only have to spackle the top portion then.

I went to strip some wallpaper last year and found paneling underneath. (there was no drywall behind it so I didn't really have a choice at the time). I mudded and sanded all my seams and nail holes etc with drywall compound ($6) and painted a flat gray. Looks great and no one notices it's paneling

you can add a wallpaper boarder to the top --- not necessary to fill in the paneling grooves either -- the boarder goes right over it and looks nice --- or if you want, you could a chair rail up or put the paper boarder in the area where you could put the chair rail.

Use wallpaper liner and then wallpaper the wall.