I painted mine in the opposite order from you. I painted the wood decks first while they were not attached to the hull, painted the hull separately, and are hand-painting the deck details and verticals like the barbettes. I also really hate masking, as I have found that no matter what I do, especially on the hull, something goes wrong. For example, I have a 1/350 Academy Reuben James, and although I have scrubbed the hull several times with all sorts of things, parts of the gray keep coming off when I remove the tape. I have a feeling it is something unique to that ship, as it hasn't happened with anything else. I also have a 1/350 Trumpeter Tsesarevich which keeps having the black on the bootstripe come off when I masked over it to re-do the red below the waterline. Removing the masks after painting is one of the scariest moments of any build for me.