I guess your basement's wall

is decorated with wood paneling. I think you have two choices:

1) You can paint it using the same paint as you paint the wall. But you need to primer them first as they are dark color.
2) You can take them out. Why I suggest you do this is that: painting on the wood paneling dose not look good!
Our family room had dark wood paneling also, my hu*****and and me took it out recently. You need to buy a kind of tool ($12) from HD and a hammer, then you can start pulling the paneling, then you need to fill the neel holes, mud the dry wall, sand the dry wall, primer the dry wall, then paint it. Not very hard, and you guys can do it. It takes a couple of days.