OMG, I'd take them in a minute and stain them in layers, celery green, a soft grey, a soft blue and dry brush them with a rust tone to give them that beach wood look. I can't imagine tossing them for a vanilla box look. I'm buying a home with them now, in the living room and they should be wonderful with the Moroccan theme I'm doing. They are a decorator's dream!

BTW, the popcorn ceilings are an easy scraping process. Those, I would remove.

I've only seen that in Nevada. Do you also have the cactus wood lamp?

LOLOL now I loved our wormwood paneling we had in our basement when I was a kid. It looks better not painted and we were in Delaware. Agree on the popcorn ceilings though. They are the worst. It is actually Cyprus that had worms in it, I guess that would appeal more to a kid. LOLOL Our house had been built in 1954 and the owner we purchased from, the original owner, had refinished the basement. He was quite the woodworker, so done between 1954 and 1959 when we purchased the home.

We just did 1/4 " drywall over paneled walls it turned out great- you just need to watch your trim work etc - messy job as drywall is - get the popcorn off the ceiling pronto

Can I just have someone cover the walls with dry wall and paint?

You could but I wouldn't advise it. Because...

You have a lot of openings--windows & doorways. What are you going to do about the exposed edges of the drywall?

You will need to add jamb extensions to all of the doors & window openings.

I would remove the paneling to avoid having to deal with adding jamb extensions & all of the electrical switch & outlet boxes.

Upside to tearing back to the studs is that you can add more electrical outlets &/or relocate boxes that might be better situated.

is there anywhere i can sell the wormwood paneling on my walls i am in florida?