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I just recently became an owner of a mobile home. It is an 82 mobile home. Throughout the house it has the 1/4 wood paneling, neither me or my wife are too fond of this wood paneling. We have came up with a few options of what we are wanting to do to cover it up.
The first option we thought of was just to first primer the walls and then tape and mud over the seams and fake expansion joint lines then sand it and then texture the whole wall. Then to paint. One problem we thought of is with this process the walls being so flimsy and movable that if someone was to hit the wall with a chair or just bump up against it the texture would just flake and crack off the wall.
The next thought we had was to just go and get some 1/4 in drywall and put it over the top of the wall panels and go from there with the finish work.
Any help is greatly appreciated and would love to hear feedback on these methods and which one would work better or if someone has a totally different idea of what to do with it. Thanks in advance.

Hi & welcome. You are correct as far as the flex causing the texture problems. Many here have removed the paneling and used sheetrock. You can also check for insulation problems with the paneling off. Remember that mobile homes do flex & move by design. Keep that in mind when you think about what you want to finish with. Sheet rock installed with the joints taped & finished will in all likelihood crack over time if you have freezing weather. Greg

Okay, there isn't any way to avoid that flexing? and if i was to pull the paneling off, what recommended thickness would you suggest?

the dry wall should be the 1/4 inch stuff to avoid increasing the weight unless you are willing to add the extra supports underneath the home is what I have heard.

priming and painting the paneling alone is a huge improvement. It goes from the dark paneling look to much brighter, a country cottage look. Maybe try one wall, and see if that is all you need instead of the texturizing, which can crack.

if you are worried about hitting the dry wall and punching through with chairs, like in a dining room, you can put up 1/4 inch luann 32 inches high (a 4foot by 8 foot sheet cuts into 3 section, 12 feet wide) on top of the dry wall, capped off with trim on the bottom of the wall as waistcoating. I don't think you should do that in every room, but it is a good fix also for holes from kicks or punches on walls.

I updated the stairway of an apartment building with paneling on the bottom of the wall and painted it, and we have only scuffed the paint here and there, instead of tearing the wall paper that was there before. All of the tenants really liked the result.

Brenda (OH)

I agree with Brenda. Of all the things that you can do to the walls to get rid of that dark paneling look, priming and painting gets you the best bang for the buck.

We purchased joint compound @ $13/5gal. and wiped it over the fake joints. A 2nd application, quick sanding, then paint makes the appearance of sheetrock w/out the texturing problem. It works w/ the flexing as not to crack/break off.

Inexpensive, and doesn't take very long w/ minimal skill. Looks fine too.