Painting the Living Room

Since we didn't really have enough experience to tear down the paneling, we decided that priming and painting was the way to go. We purchased ten gallons of tinted primer, and 2 gallons of paint - the name of which I'll figure out when I go check the can in the garage later. The primer is Kilz2 Latex Based Primer, and the paint is BEHR flat interior latex. Here's how we did what we did:

1. Moved all the furniture to the center of the room and covered it with heavy drop cloths. 
2. Covered ALL the carpet with drop cloths, and tucked then into the baseboards.
3. Covered the windows with newspaper and painters tape.
4. Covered the ceilings with craft paper and painters tape.
5. Cleaned the walls with a TSP alternative: BIX TSP substitute. We mixed it according to the directions and wiped down all the surfaces to be painted with a rag.
6. After the walls dried, we started to prime them with a roller. This is not recommended for paneling - it will take FOREVER.
7. Went to HD, purchased a good paint sprayer (wagner).
8. Using the paint sprayer AND rollers - 1 person sprayed, the other person smoothed with a roller after - got the whole room primed in 1 hour (the previous 1/2 wall had taken 3 hours by itself).
9. If you're using a paint sprayer, it's very important to clean it out while the paint is still wet - so in between coats, rinse out your paint sprayer!
10. Using the same sprayer roller method, we applied two coats of our paint.
11. A couple of days later, with all the tape still in place, we used small brushes to paint all the trim and baseboards.  Below are before/during/after pics.

before:

During:

After - both taken during the holidays.

Just for comparison, here's the before and after right next to each other (if I can get the formatting to work correctly)

So - about $150 total for primer + paint + sprayer + rollers + brushes + tape + dropcloths = totally worth it for a room that doesn't feel like a cave!

What about you - have you painted or torn down paneling in an older home? Should we think about getting rid of the paneling altogether, or do you think the paint was a good enough update?