Panel walls
Give beautiful panel walls the care they deserve. Dust them every month. Cigarette smoke and cooking oils put a dulling film on your walls. So clean and wax them at least three times a year. Fill gouges and dents with plastic wood. When the filler has dried, sand it carefully. Select a paint or stain that matches or blends, and color the patch.
Camouflage scratches immediately. A thin scratch doesn’t devalue your home, but it can gnaw at your peace of mind. You plan to repair it someday anyway; why not now? Brush dust and dirt from 1 the scratch. If you wax your walls, remove the wax with a mild detergent and rinse with clear water. After the wall dries, apply wood stain, iodine, almond stick, or some other convenient touchup product. The repair takes less time than worrying about it, you’ll find.
The same goes for popped-out paneling and loose window mould- ings. For mouldings, mash down the old staples and hammer the strips to window studs with finishing nails. Use finishing nails to reattach loose panels. A chronic pop-out problem suggests bad blocking.
A badly damaged wall calls for new panels. Finding a matching panel may be hard, not because wood panels are difficult to find but because the color varies slightly with each new factory run. Even a new panel from the same job lot wouldn’t match yours, because sunlight that filters into your home discolors wood finishes rather quickly. The answer: repanel that whole wall. One whole side of a room doesn’t look so bad if it doesn’t match the others perfectly.
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