How to Hide Seams When Installing Paneling

Before installing thin plywood paneling in a room, it’s a good idea to install drywall behind it to make the wall stronger.

To prevent the drywall from showing through the seams in the paneling:

1. Mark the paneling seam with a pencil.
2. Move the sheet of paneling out of the way.
3. Spray black spray paint on the seam along the pencil line.
4. Install the paneling on the wall.

Watch this video to find out more.

Further Information

• How to Paint Paneling (video)
• How to Paint or Resurface Wall Paneling (article)

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Joe Truini: Here Danny and I are installing some four by eight foot sheet of pine paneling.

Danny Lipford: Now it’s always a good idea anytime you’re installing paneling to have a drywall backing, it really helps to keep the paneling nice and flat when you’re installing it. But the problem can be, because of the color of the drywall, it can shine through if there’s any shrinkage in the seams of the paneling.

Joe Truini: And even if the paneling doesn’t shrink at all, sometimes the drywall will show through because the seams just don’t fit nice and tight. Here you’ll notice the little white stripe is showing. If you don’t take care of it now at this stage, after you’re done, you can have little white stripes showing every four feet throughout the room.

So to solve that problem, what we’re going to is—before you slide that out of the way, Danny, let me mark it—you just run your pencil along this seam, just a mark where it’s going to be on the wall. OK, move that out. And then you can just use a can of black spray paint to spray a stripe right down along where that seam is.

You don’t have to worry about being very neat about it—it’s a little wobbly, but that’ll hide any gaps. Then when you slide this over, if there’s any shrinkage, the black paint will hide it.

Now the reason we used black paint and not brown, which is actually the color of the paneling, is if you notice the edge of the paneling actually is black, so it will match it perfectly.