I'm finally ready to do something about this awful paneling in our bonus room/ playroom/ media room. And just do something about the whole general mess lol.

The entire paneling is unfinished, rough cedar (you can see close up of texture in photo). We're entirely not handy and have a two year old so I would be hiring someone for the work but I need ideas on what to do with it that wouldn't be cost prohibitive. A contractor told me they couldn't paint it, they would need to stain and it would stink and be a generally a very expensive and messy job. I'm not convinced we can't paint? Should I ask for a second opinion? We can rip it off, but then we'd still need to do something with the cabinets in the back, plus with a toddler for now I kind of like the idea of panelling protecting the walls on the bottom from all the drawing and poking haha. I just hate the color and texture and the whole look honestly. Ideally I would love to paint it all a very light color, maybe even with one section being chalkboard paint. I don't mind the panel grooves showing through. The other idea is I was looking at wall liners or paintable wallpaper, but again I know nothing about it and whether it would work on that type of wall, or how much it would cost for such a large room.

Any ideas??

Once we've figured that out, I'd also love to figure out how to make it nicer and neater looking in general, our boys are 8 and 2 so I'd love a space that's already moving beyond just playroom to something that'll grow with them as tweens for a hangout and study place. For now we also need to keep their areas somewhat separated to keep the toddler from getting into his brother's things, hence our shelf placement at the moment. I know we need to go through and just throw a bunch of stuff out because it's all become the general dumping ground various junk like exercise equipment and sentimental knick knacks. For now it also needs to be child safe so no really tall shelving etc. All ideas and inspiration pics (preferably real life ones) are welcome! Excuse the mess lol.