Some basements are unfinished, others are just never quite finished. Some basement paneling counts as almost retro cool, some is cheesy. Our basement falls into the never-quite-finished category, and the paneling is probably closer to cheesy than cool.

There are signs of sporadic attempts by previous owners to finish parts of the rooms, clearly over a period of decades given the materials involved. But no one seems to have ever quite finished the job in any room, or if they did, some later resident must have decided to remove parts of it in preparation for doing it differently. So as we contemplate making one of the rooms more usable living space, we're left with paneling on two walls, wallpaper in a particularly repulsive olive drab color on another and just the wood framing on the fourth side.

Here's my dilemma: Given that a fancy-pants full-fledged basement remodel isn't in our DIY budget, do we just paint the paneling to match the other walls? Or since we'd need to dry wall the unfinished wall anyway, do we rip out the paneling and dry wall the entire room? (Like all things you don't like, the paneling is in excellent condition and seemingly indestructible.) Or do I convince myself that the paneling isn't so bad and just finish off the remaining wall? I'm thinking I could cover up one of the offending walls with shelving, so that would leave just one long wall of it in view.

Anyone had experience painting paneling? I've read instructions online on how to prepare the walls, but I'm looking for advice from someone who has tackled such a project. Was it worth the effort and you wish you'd done it years ago? Or do you wish you'd left well enough alone?

And once we tackle that, there's the ugly peeling floor tile and no-longer tiled ceiling ...