Aesthetic Connundrum

[shadesofmauve]

I'm having the sliding glass door in my bedroom replaced when I get the studio windows. It's single-paned aluminum, the most poorly insulated part of the house and an eyesore to boot. Replacing the slider is a no-brainer -- I should have had it done when I paid for the front windows.

Unfortunately it brings up the problem of trim.


My house has mix-matched interior trim styles. Not just mix-matched from room to room, but within the rooms. I haven't helped this situation any, because I had windows replaced almost as soon as I moved in, well before I had any kind of vision or plan. I can't just pick something that matches the rest of the house.

If I knew what paint colors I wanted in the bedroom that would help, but Erik and I haven't come up with a paint scheme we agree on in three years of me owning the house (No, technically he doesn't need a say in it, but I'd rather not have my bedroom be a place he hates to be... :P). It's a sliding door, so any mismatch with baseboards will be incredibly obvious; I need to have it trimmed in a way I'll want to continue throughout the room.

Of course, thinking about it makes me question the trim I had put on the other windows, too. ARGH.

In the rented bedrooms (oak floor, crap mahogany trim and doors) I paid for paint-grade poplar, intending to paint it (because hey, renters! Low-upkeep is good). When it was installed I thought it was pretty, though, and I put a ridiculous amount of time into staining one of them instead. I haven't finished the second one at all, because madalchemist is busy living in that room.

The living and dining rooms open onto each other and have four different trims between them. Off-white molded MDF crap around the baseboards, blockish butt-jointed off-white wood around the slider, ancient beaten up mahogany around the door, and newer not-yet-stained mahogany around the window. It's a mess. I chose the not-yet-stained mahogany to match the mantle and tie in with the wood door (it's fir, and it's freakin' gorgeous) but the trim on every other wall is painted fiber board. The wood-on-white looks beautiful next to the green wall... but the green wall has off-white fiber-board trim.

The dining room's no help -- I want to paint it a very bright color that will really only work with white trim, which pretty much necessitates white trim in the living room, that would then leave the window frame not matching the baseboards, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of design sin. So I probably should have paid less and painted the trim.

What was I thiiiiinking?!

The only thing I know for sure is that I want to replace the fiber-board junk with wood (painted or otherwise) because you really should be able to bump your trim without denting it.


TL;DR: My house has an identity crisis, I can't make decisions, and fiber-board sucks.

Comments

[stasia]

I don't think you need to have the trim match from room to room. It's okay if the dining room's trim is white and one thing, while the living room has stained trim in a different pattern/style/wood/flavor. You could, even, play up the differences, as a way of demarcating rooms.

Bear in mind, I'm a chromaphile and would have colorcolorcolor everywhere, so I might not be the best adviser for this.

And yes, fiberboard suxxorz.

Stasia

[shadesofmauve]

I may not have been clear enough -- the problem is that the dining and living rooms run into each other, so there are corners where the two trims would meet. The other issue is that the green wall in the living room looks best with white trim, even if the white walls might look best with wood (and the window frame is already wood). How would you feel about white baseboards and wood windows?

EDIT: Also, did you see my massive pic post yesterday? I thought of you and your color-love when I posted the pic of my kitchen window. ;P

[stasia]

I did see the post - and omg, I love that color for your kitchen. I saw the note in the description line and looked at the color and thought, Oh, how nice. I wonder if, if we ever buy a house, Geordie would let me do that. Heh. I wonder if he'd have a choice!

So, if you match the style of trim, but not the color, there's a way to have them be dramatically different. Or you could just ... embrace the difference? Make them the same size, but different patterns and put a square boss at the point of joinery?

I don't care about matching trim, so I'm really the wrong person to ask. I like pattern and lots of it, so, well. Yeah, different window trim and baseboards and don't forget crown molding up high, but leave a space so you can have room for your plates...

Stasia

[shadesofmauve]

if you match the style of trim, but not the color,

That seems like a workable idea. I had them use a basic wedge profile on the window (Like this because it's a 1960s house and pretending otherwise seemed silly), but with one minor detail. The top and sides have a narrow trim that 'matches' the original beat-up mahogany in size, but the bottom piece, under the sill, is wider. I did it that way because it helped hide places where the wall was beat up, but also for some bottom-weight, visually. I suppose that means I could use wider baseboards if I wanted and it would still match, after a fashion!

[shadesofmauve]

This morning I decided to provide visual aids!

Here's the corner in the living room with THREE different trim types:


(unfinished new trim on the window, crappy off-white fiberboard installed right before I bought, and possibly-original beat-up crappy mahogany).

And here's the green wall next to the door, because COLORS.