[Updated 5/2022]
I recently posted about a bedroom in progress that presented a trim challenge. In response, a Gentle Reader left this comment:
I have started to hate thinking about trim colour. If you paint the trim a creamier colour, will you need to paint the door? If so, will you need to paint BOTH sides of the door? Will you then need to paint the trim in the hallway (and thus presumably the rest of the house, and the rest of the doors) to match? Argh!
Basically I just don’t understand the rules for trim.
Ok, my friends. Let’s see if we can nail down some rules. It would be so delightful and easy if every single room in our home could have the same trim color. Alas, this is never the case.
Rule #1: Trim color does not have to be the same in every room…
If your floor plan is REALLY open, then yes, using the same trim color makes sense – but in that case, you might be using the same wall color everywhere anyway.
Rule #2: …but don’t be haphazard about it
Sticking with various off-whites in most of your rooms is a safe bet.
That way, when you’re standing in a particular room, the trim color you’ve chosen for that room looks perfect.
But when you’re standing in the front hall and can see several rooms at once, your eye won’t discern the subtle differences between the varying shades of white. Make sense?
Rule #3: Paint only the room side of doors
This is in response to, “…will you need to paint BOTH sides of the door?”
No. If you’re painting only one room and the trim is off-white (but possibly a different off-white than neighboring rooms), it’s not complicated. Stand in the to-be-painted room, close the door, and paint only that side of the door.
But what if you’re going bold on the trim, you ask? E.g., you’re going navy on your library trim and that door opens into a TV room that has off-white trim? The library side of the door should be navy blue.
Rule #4: Think twice before using non-white trim in public rooms
It’s dramatic. And with great drama comes great responsibility. If you’re going to get fancy and paint the trim in a room black or light blue, then limit it to that room just to be safe. If you get creative with trim in your LR and DR and family room, the effect can be frenetic or hokey. Neither look is for you.
(Go nuts in your kids’ rooms if you like, though. Colorful trim there can be super cute.)
Rule #5: Lighter color wins
If you have an open doorway / door frame between rooms, and an off-white trim color in the first and a much creamier taupe in the second, paint the inside of the door frame the LIGHTER color.
Rule #6: Bathroom trim doesn’t have to be white
Shocker! But look. If you have a shiny new bathroom in which the sink, toilet and tub are all sparkly new and white, then match the trim color to that white and call it a day. (Benjamin Moore’s OC-152 Super White is a fantastic match for bathroom fixtures.)
But what if you had to replace the toilet – so now it’s blinding white – but your sink and tub are, well, aged?
Use color on the trim and the conflicting whites will settle down. For example, use one of my favorite light blues, Benjamin Moore’s 2136-70 Whispering Spring, on the walls, but then do the trim 2 shades darker, or even a different color entirely, such as orangey red or a dark olive green. Your guests will be so charmed that they won’t notice the mismatched fixtures.
What do you do if your fixtures are a color other than white, you ask? Please replace them immediately.
Rule #7: Deepen the trim if the wall color is dark.
This isn’t a rule so much as a preference, but I think bright white trim with deep walls can look cheap.
This is where this post started, remember? Because I painted a bedroom deep blue and hoped we could get away with leaving some of the trim bright white.
We couldn’t.
I hope this is helpful, Gentle Readers. It makes me so sad to think of you losing sleep over trim colors. There are many more important things to lose sleep over.
Like wall colors.
Annie Elliott Design is based in Washington, DC, with satellite offices in St. Michaels, Maryland and in Middlebury, Vermont. Annie’s design work and insights have appeared in numerous local and national publications, including HGTV Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian Magazine.