I just bought a house with ugly brown wood panneling :( For a cost effective solution (for now) instead of ripping it down, can we paint it? How about white washing it? Would white washing it make it look more like birch? We have the northwoods theme going on so that might work. ANy advice would be much appreciated!! :)

Scuff it up, prime it up, and paint it up

I have a simpler way of painting paneling there is a primer specifically for paneling that requires no pre sanding, it applies with a brush or roller and provides a surface for your paint to adhere to I believe it is called "liquid Sand"
Hope this helps, in reference to white washing that I don't know

Our basement has some dark panels in a hallway and landing. Previous owners painted wout priming. You can strip the paint off with a rough edge easily. Id prime for sure unless you find another product that is made for panels.

No one asked, but wall paper is always a nice choice also, and it don't look like painted paneling when you are done.

In our old house we had wood paneling in the diningroom of all places, not quite the look we were looking for. We found a wallpaper that can cover paneling, brick and other hard to cover surfaces. It went up pretty easy and then we just painted over it. After a few times painting you could see the grain of the paneling but it looked really nice. I ended up painting it several times in 10 years and as far as I know it's still going strong. We found it at Menards. Good luck.:)

I just bought a house with ugly brown wood panneling :( For a cost effective solution (for now) instead of ripping it down, can we paint it? How about white washing it? Would white washing it make it look more like birch? We have the northwoods theme going on so that might work. ANy advice would be much appreciated!!! :)
Thank you all for your advice, I haven't been on here in a while to respond, but we did end up just painting it, and it looks great! Thanks for all of your great tips!