Thank ya'll for the help and info, I really appreciate it. You've clarified some things for me and also opened up some new questions for me... I really was hoping to stick with waterbased primer and paint...the small projects in the past with oil-based paints just seemed to end up messy with paintbrushes that I never could get clean. I'm sure I'm gonna need the knowledge of working with the oil-based stuff sooner or later anyhow. It looks like the materials procurement is going to be a chore in itself. I'm gonna have to do some long-distance shopping. Looking in my local yellow pages I come up with one paint dealer...a Pittsburgh Paints dealer. A problem that I run into is that I'm rural and have to drive roughly 65 miles to the nearest Lowe's. I'll probably have to venture up to Montgomery, AL to find a true paint store....that will probably be 130 miles roundtrip. It looks like several SW stores are up there but not many "mom and pop" stores...I'll see what I can find. Do the SW stores normally handle other brands of paint/primer??? PG, your view of caulking and the cost difference between good and mediocre brands makes sense to me...with your's and Faron's recommendations I'll be returning the Alex Plus and looking for something along the lines of Dynaflex 230. I went to Lowe's last night trying to see what sanding/scraping/etc. supplies they might have that will help me get the old paint off/sanded. I was going to pick up a respirator. They had two different ones in stock (can't remember the brands), one stated it was for sanding and insulation and teh other stated it was for painting and spraying chemicals. Reading the fine print both of them stated they weren't for use with lead. I didn't buy either one. I figure it was the basic "we warned you, don't blame us..." statement and that they probably would work fine...I'll keep a lookout for a 3M brand. Sanding equipment...I looked at different electric sanders and figured I'd get a *real* good dust bath with one of those...ended up simply getting some sandpaper and sanding block along with a couple of foam sanding blocks. I'll see how that goes...mostly will be used to feather edge the remaining paint. I'll be doing a lot of windows later on...if I do decide to pick up an electric sander would an random orbital or a 1/4 sheet finishing sander be better? As for the ceiling itself... In some places there are definite large gaps between the T&G pieces. I've already pulled some large strings of caulking from between some of the pieces. I agree that T&G should fit snuggly together. I don't know if the caulking was used when the house was constructed or if it was added later on...it's a silicone-type so I guess it would have to be of more recent year vintage. It appears that most of the caulking was used more toward the outside areas of the ceiling closest to the weather so it probably was used to fill weather-created gaps. ??? I'm curious as to whether it will be worth my while to order some caulking by the case...that big window in the pictures is one of sixteen that size or 2.5X that size. I may wait and see how much I use on the two windows under the porch and then order some accordingly...or hopefully find some locally (at least as local as possible). weed_cutter, you are right about the roof...flat and no ventilation to speak up between the metal top and the T&G. But, the reason for the bad condition of some of the T&G is pretty much due to several bad leaks that existed before the metal roof was installed. Thanks for the vote on the Duramax...it's supposed to be the one-coat/no-primer stuff but I still want to go down with a primer coating. In regards to windows...is DAP '33' good glazing material? I'm going to need to re-glaze panes in several of the windows. Well, I'm adjusting my shopping lists and will plan on a road trip to Montgomery. Thanks for the help! Ed

For stripping, a lot depends on the paint you are trying to remove...how old is the house? how many layers? any chance it is lead paint? Are you planning to paint or stain the treads once they are stripped? If you've only got a couple layers and/or if it's not lead paint, a heat gun may work well. Otherwise, you'll want a stripper. We stripped the stairs in our last house - a 200 year old farmhouse with about 15 layers of flaking nasty paint. I started with conventional methylene chloride (I think) based stripper. Each application would get one layer off and it was taking forever - I worked on 2 stair treads for about 3 solid days and they still weren't done. I tried a heat gun but it wasn't all that effective either, plus it's not really safe on lead paint. Plus the bottom layer or two were milk paint, which is near-impossible to strip with either a heat gun or regular stripper. I ended up using Peel Away, which is a lye based product - you paint it on like paste and cover it with special wax paper. Then you leave it sit for 24-48 hours. When you remove the paper and scrape off the peel away, the paint comes with it. You then wash the new wood and spray it with vinegar to neutralize the lye (otherwise your wood will continue to get eaten away). Peel away was great because 1) it eliminated a lot of elbow grease - the stripper did the work for us, 2) it was nasty, but not nearly as nasty as the meth chloride stripper, 3) it is considered one of the best strippers for lead paint because something in the lye bonds with the lead and prevents it from being absorbed by the body. Plus the lead paint stays wet and gooey, and never has a chance to get scattered as dust like it would be if you were scraping/sanding. Alas, it's not all peachy though. Peel Away (at least the formulation we used - they have a few different ones) can discolor/darken the wood, so it's best to use on wood you are planning to repaint, not stain. We stained the treads and painted the risers and handrail and you could definitely see the discoloration where we stained (we prefered to think of it as "patina" though!). It also didn't get all the paint out of the little cracks. In places it made the wood very soft so we had to be very careful when removing it - we gouged the wood in several places. Oh, and one thing I noticed was that you REALLY have to soak the thing in vinegar (which raises the grain) - if you don't neutralize it enough, you will wake up one day 3 months later to find your new paint job sliding down off the wall because the peel away has eaten it away from the backside. (Ask me how I know this....) Even with the Peel Away, it took us several months of weekends to get all the trim stripped in our house - it's a dirty messy job, but worth it in the end. HTH! Good luck!

If the floor is to be painted, follow the label instructions of the paint you will use for its priming requirements; the porch paint I've been using (Ben Moore Alkyd) is so-called self-priming, and works best as its own first coat. With PT yellow pine T&G, to get a decent finish you will need to have the floor sanded before painting to get it flat. Un-sanded, there will be proud edges that will get the paint worn off them in short order. The sanding (to 80 grit, but no further than 100 grit) will roughen up the summer wood parts of the yellow pine grain so paint will stick; peeling is the worst characteristic of YP as an exterior wood. If I were using oil paint, I'd thin the first coat with a little turpentine, it really seems to help paint stick to YP. Casey

Not cedar...pine. I thought it would be cute (the nook will have a banquette, and I could back the bench with the T&G, as well), but when mentioning to my DH, he nixed that idea. He wants to use it in the mudroom. I don't! My second choice was laundry room.