Here’s a before-and-after worth noting. The wood wall paneling inside an 1890s NYC brownstone was severely damaged nearly a century after its installation—by a guy with a sandblaster. What to do?

The apartment’s interior features a beautiful Jacobean ceiling, parquet oak floors, and floor-to-ceiling paneling of quarter-sawn oak. The paneled walls had probably been painted and left that way, until someone realized there was beautiful wood under the paint and chose to use a sandblaster. Sadly, that someone didn’t realize how much damage would result from using such a drastic method of paint removal. All the wood paneling now has a severely distressed grain which, even when stained and varnished, resembles fir plywood.

Since it can’t be sanded back to smooth, the best solution is returning the wall to a painted finish. Wood filler will help the badly damaged areas, but a good primer and finish coat in “off-white” will best restore the room’s period details.

To learn more about wood paneling and stripping paint the right way, check out the following articles:

Quick Tip: Stripping Paint
Paint Stripping Tools
Custom Paneling Systems