Paint interior trim for a modern look
Looking for a unique way to bring new color into your home?
Try painting your trim. Interior walls often get the color treatment, but if you’ve found that you love neutral walls but are still itching for color, painting baseboards, crown molding, wainscoting, windowsills and other trim might just be the ticket.
Neutral walls are wonderful for their ability to coordinate with just about everything, and neutral colors are traditionally paired with white trim. But colored trim can soften the cool feel of an all-white or all-neutral room. Pastel and cool trim colors will lend a more tranquil presence to a room, while vivid or warm colors will bring excitement and energy.
How to pick a trim color?
- Choose a coordinating trim color for your wall shade.
The easiest way to do this is to select a lighter or darker variation of your wall color. Staying within the same color family will help ensure your new trim color coordinates with your existing décor.
For non-neutral walls, this can give a color-on-color look – perhaps your walls are sky blue and your trim is several notches down the blue scale, at robin’s egg blue. Color-on-color can be an adventurous, bold statement in a room.
- Choose a contrasting color that is already present in your décor.
Let’s say that your walls are a light tan, but much of your furniture is dark, finished wood. Painting your trim a deep chocolate brown will tie in the furniture that already exists in your room, and will give your walls a bit more oomph.
- Choose an undertone.
This option requires a bit more knowledge of color families, but might work best in whole-house trim painting, particularly if your wall colors are consistent – or at least similar – throughout the house.
All paint colors, even neutrals, have warm or cool undertones. Often, these undertones are visible in certain lights when the color appears to have blue (or cool) tinges or gold (or warm) ones. If you can identify the undertones of your wall colors, choosing a trim color with the same type of undertone can lead to a pleasant contrasting view. For example, a neutral tan wall with gray undertones can handle trim color that also has gray undertones.
For a professional color consult from McLain’s Painting Service, contact us.
