I'm so over it...

Dining room is about 99.9% completed. I just need to go back and scrape off some stray paint here and there. I won't be satisfied until it has no flaws. Har har.

A few tips when painting:
1. Use regular latex primer on everything first - walls and wood trimwork.
2. Whatever stains that show, go back with oil-based primer.
3. Your paintbrushes used for the oil-based primer is now ruined. Throw them away. Make sure you use cheap throwawayable brushes.
4. DuckTape Clean Release painter's tape is a joke - your walls will be ruined if you put the tape on the walls just like they do in the commercials. Call the company and ask for your money back.
5. Although painter's tape sucks, tape the hell out of the room anyway.
6. If an entire room has to be painted from ceiling to the baseboards, start with the ceiling first, then walls, then trim work. Don't forget to to primer the hell out of the room. You'll be glad you did.
7. Not all whites are white. Try everything, even ceiling paint on a conspicuous area, next to something that is supposed to be white, and see if its the white you want.
8. Clean all the walls and trim work with TSP, Mineral Spirits, or diluted Awesome. It'll get rid of the dirt, grime, and other gunk settled from years and years of living.
9. Walls need at least two top coats. Bare wood, 3 dried coats of primer, 2 top coats.
10. Don't settle for "uh, that looks good enough". IT DOESN'T. It probably looks like crap if you are thinking that.

Starting on the living room now - tearing out some rough sawn wood on the fireplace wall. Much more of a pain in the ass than you can imagine. We're going at it with a power drill and drilling numerous holes so that we could break it off. Our Dremel is a piece of crap that would set the wood on fire if we used it more than twice in a row.