# How to paint over plywood?



## Kill Compton (Oct 22, 2008)

I am buying a house that has plywood on the walls with a clear coat on it. There is no drywall over it and we heard that we CAN paint it, and with a certain primer you will not be able to tell it is plywood. I heard, from many sources that it will look as good as painting on drywall or plaster. Does anybody know what that might be or of any other methods without having to sand it all.. This is a 4000 sf home, with several parts being 2 stories.. and that would not be in our time frame.

We also heard of this being an environmentally friendly alternative to drywall. 
If anyone has ANY ideas, please let me know.
Thank you.


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## Matthewt1970 (Sep 16, 2008)

Without adding a heavy texture to it, you will still be able to tell it is plywood. You also have all those border trim pieces in the middle of the wall that cover up the edgs of the plywood. You have a lot of work making those look like plain walls. I would first pull some of those trim pieces and see what the edgeslook like.


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## DUDE! (May 3, 2008)

from the pictures, it looks like glue-board which has a different texture to it then plywood. Someone with more knowledge can name a primer to put on it before painting but I think you are going to have trouble getting a smooth as sheetrock feel to it.


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

It seems to me that you have the ideal situation right now. You have maintenance free walls. You don't have to repaint them periodically. You have interesting walls that start conversations about walls.

If it were me, I would leave them as they are. If you paint over them, then now you're going to have to start cleaning marks off your walls, and cleaning off SOME stubborn marks will result in your scrubbing the paint off the wall, and then you find that the new paint doesn't match the old paint cuz the old paint is dirty whereas the new paint isn't, which means painting the whole wall.

I'd take some time to think over this decision. You can always paint the walls next year or the year after. However, once you paint those walls, you can never go back to what you have now.


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## Matthewt1970 (Sep 16, 2008)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> It seems to me that you have the ideal situation right now. You have maintenance free walls. You don't have to repaint them periodically. You have interesting walls that start conversations about walls.
> 
> If it were me, I would leave them as they are. If you paint over them, then now you're going to have to start cleaning marks off your walls, and cleaning off SOME stubborn marks will result in your scrubbing the paint off the wall, and then you find that the new paint doesn't match the old paint cuz the old paint is dirty whereas the new paint isn't, which means painting the whole wall.
> 
> I'd take some time to think over this decision. You can always paint the walls next year or the year after. However, once you paint those walls, you can never go back to what you have now.


I would have to agree. People will tend to say that has a 70's look to it, but those are the same people that will go in and paint beautiful wood cabinets and brick to make it look "Updated" :bangin:

In my opinion bare wood is timeless. They didn't invent bare wood in the 70's.


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