Cleaning wood paneling and decorating help

acommondisaster

Active Member
Can anyone tell me what they've had good experience with when cleaning wood - especially tongue and groove paneling. I need to thoroughly clean the walls and ceiling and exposed beams in master bedroom in our cabin. The room's been untouched for 10+ years.

I'm not really looking for a google/link, because I can do that myself - but to quote Abe Lincoln, you can't trust everything you find on the internet. Any advice would be appreciated.

Once it's squeaky clean, we're going to carpet the room and add a small walk-in closet in one corner. With wood walls and ceiling, do I need to go really light (off white) with the carpet, or could I do something crazy like red carpet? Would a chandelier seem weird in a paneled room? (It's not sheet paneling) Room has 6 window and western exposure, so we don't have to worry about the room being too dark with all the paneling. Help!
 

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
Murphy's Oil Soap is a good mild cleaner for wood. It's been around for years. I used it on my kitchen cabinets when I first moved in and it got them all clean, and grease-free.
 

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
I would do a medium light/neutral colored (with many blended colors) Berber carpet with all the wood on the walls, ceiling, etc. I think there will be plenty of different fiber colors in the Berber which will go with the wood and I think Berber will be a great carpet type for that room.

Not sure about the Chandelier. I would need pictures of the room and the light fixture you're thinking of. :yay:
 

Roman

Active Member
If you have animals, especially dogs, Berber carpet is a bad choice because it is looped.
We have 2 small dogs, and Berber with a tight knit. The carpet started to get runs in it almost immediately. It's not high-end carpet, but it's not the lowest on the list either.
 

Midnightrider

Well-Known Member
We have 2 small dogs, and Berber with a tight knit. The carpet started to get runs in it almost immediately. It's not high-end carpet, but it's not the lowest on the list either.

Yep, Berber will get runs, particularly if you have many places it needs to be cut to fit your room. Then if you have pets or kids the runs get pulled and look terrible
 

nutz

Well-Known Member
Pine sol or as mentioned, Murphy's. After cleaning, a coat of beeswax (paste or spray). No reason to treat it any different than your nice wood furniture.
 

Bann

Doris Day meets Lady Gaga
PREMO Member
We have 2 small dogs, and Berber with a tight knit. The carpet started to get runs in it almost immediately. It's not high-end carpet, but it's not the lowest on the list either.

:yay: Good to know. I never owned a dog, just a cat, with our Berber.

And two boys. :biggrin: Never had a problem with the boys, though. We had Berber in Florida and they took their shoes off when they came in the house, if that makes any difference.
 

Midnightrider

Well-Known Member
those work great for smooth surfaces, not so much rough ones.
My last house was a 'log cabin kit' that had tongue and groove redwood for interior walls. When we went to sell it we paid a cleaning service to get it all sparkly. They used a swiffer and ended up getting little bits of the pad stuck on every little spliter in the walls and ceiling. I had to get them to send out another person to clean all that crap off the walls. it actually took longer to get the fuzz off the walls because you had to pick each piece by had.
just somehting to consider
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
those work great for smooth surfaces, not so much rough ones.
My last house was a 'log cabin kit' that had tongue and groove redwood for interior walls. When we went to sell it we paid a cleaning service to get it all sparkly. They used a swiffer and ended up getting little bits of the pad stuck on every little spliter in the walls and ceiling. I had to get them to send out another person to clean all that crap off the walls. it actually took longer to get the fuzz off the walls because you had to pick each piece by had.
just somehting to consider

True. I was just assuming it was smooth.
 

acommondisaster

Active Member
Thanks for all of the answers - we have 3 Chihuahuas, so I guess we'll stay away from berber, though that would have been at the top of my list.

Good advice to stay away from a Swiffer - it needs a good cleaning; probably more than a Swiffer would do and since it's real wood (instead of sheet paneling) we'd definitely get those little white bits.

Our last trip up, I applied tung oil to the bay window and I'm just so thrilled with how great it looks now, I want to be sure to do this right the first time.

I'll have to find a picture of the type of chandelier I had in mind; no pictures of the room yet as it's been used as the storage room for all the crap for the rest of the house. We gutted half of the house to reconfigure the walls (go from 3 bdrm to 2, enlarge the kitchen) but we've decided to reprioritize and instead of finishing the master bedroom last, we're going to do that first so that we have somewhere decent to sleep while we're up there working. Dumpster week in the area is coming up soon, so the room will be emptied and I want to hit the ground running to get it finished. Closet should take a day to frame and enclose then the rest will fall into place quickly. Thanks for the advice. If anyone's interested, I will post progress. We're doing all of the work ourselves, so it'll be slow going.
 
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