I have recently bought a 1980's ranch style house. All the trim, moldings and doors are stained. I NEED to paint it all white as I cannot take the darkness anymore :) Do I need to sand, prime, and paint, or will a good oil based paint work fine? (There is A LOT of painting to do)

You should use an oil-based primer. After that it will probably take 2 coats to get good coverage. Depending on how picky you are you may be satisfied with primer and 1 top coat, but "the standard" is primer + 2 top coats in a situation like this.

Make sure you have plenty of ventilation when working with oil-based paints/primers!

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Originally Posted by lovemydogs73

I have recently bought a 1980's ranch style house. All the trim, moldings and doors are stained. I NEED to paint it all white as I cannot take the darkness anymore :) Do I need to sand, prime, and paint, or will a good oil based paint work fine? (There is A LOT of painting to do)

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If the surface of the trim is to your liking just not the color, I would say go for it. If the trim is beat up and the smoothness is ruff and course you may want to do some surfacing with a fine grit paper. The more course the sand paper is the longer it will take to smooth it out with finer grit sand paper. Likewise, if the paint is flaking off I would definitely recommend smoothing over the paint at least. Be careful not to use a masking tape that will pull the finish off the walls. Apply light coats to avoid paint running. It may take two or three coats. I would start in a back room that isn't very visible tape it off and sand if you need too. Go it one room at a time. Don't tackle to big an area at one time. Oil base will look OK if you are covering oil base paint or wood stain. Otherwise you might as well use water based paint.