Home Depot clerks aren't exactly the best place to ask a painting question, but hey at least he didn't lie and give you some answer that would have been his best guess. You should use 100 percent acrylic paint, exterior paint for the exterior side and interior paint for the interior side. You can find paints that are rated for both exterior and interior as well. I would use at least a satin sheen so that the door is durable and somewhat washable when you are done. You can spray, brush or roll, whatever your choice. I usually roll them with small mohair rollers or whiizzies. It's too much effort setting up the sprayer for one door IMO.

Bona Traffic - two coats - semi-gloss Bona Cherry stain on refinished white oak floors. The guys "popped" the floors before putting the stain down. "Popped" means they lightly dampened the bare wood in order to raise the grain so the stain would penetrate better, adding a deeper color. (Floors were Bruce prefinished.) Love the Bona finish! It has been about 3 years since we did it. We have 2 active Golden Retrievers who have left indentions in the wood, but the finish has not been scratched or penetrated. Dog nails typically do not scratch the surface of wood floors, but they depress the wood due to the pressure. From Refinished floors From Refinished floors

Dana, here are a couple pof pix of our reclaimed oak plank island top. We did not use any of the companies above (I'm in Canada), but instead used a local company that specialises in reclaimed lumber and architectural salvage. The wood itself and the work cost about $800. Your pine beams sound like they will be wonderful. A couple of things we learned the hard way. Using more planks gave more stability to the island top. The first piece, which was about four planks wide, did not get installed immediately because the kitchen was still a major construction zone, and it bowed by the time we did install. It was also cut too narrow and because it is butted up against a soapstone island end, that was a problem. They recut a new piece at their expense. Also we would have made the island thicker if we had the choice - again, we were constrained by the fact that the plank wood meets up with soapstone. I wish we could have had at least a two inch thick piece. We love it! Eliz

A lot of houses around here have doors/ trim of shellacked old growth heart pine - taken from what had been the original pine forests that covered eastern US in late 1800s - at the time it was considered a cheap wood, but now its finallyappreciated and valued accordingly (if youve ever shopped in architectural salvage places). Anyway.... if thats what it is, its worth stripping too - not only oak. However - for me it would depend on how much they sanded and removed the original shellac prior to painting. If they sanded down to raw wood then the paint wouldve gotten in the pores of the wood and be next to impossible to remove. However if theres a good layer of shellac, it wouldve protected the wood and by using a heat gun you can easily soften the shellac and remove the top layer of paint. I would just test it out somewhere and see. I dont know if I would bother stripping the baseboards since those were usually pretty banged up and hard to strip, with all the curves and crevices - I might do just the doors & trim