That is a very complex question. I am not sure I understand exactly what you are asking.

Hi patrcia,

In short, is it okay if I use Alabaster SW trim throughout the house when the vanities will be a brighter white (SW Snowbound). Or should I be changing trim colours for the bath to match the vanities.

Note: Alabaster White is the colour of my kitchen cabs and great room built-ins which is why I was thinking the trim colour should be Alabaster.

Carol

Anyone?

OntarioMom,

Sorry for the lack of replies. Don't take it personally-happens to everyone at times. I think you are correct to keep the trim paint uniform throughout. You will probably not even notice the difference once you add some colored towels and accents. I have had a creamy white vanity and brighter white trim in a bath and it was beautiful. What will your vanity top be made of?

I agree with Voila. Sorry I did not get back to you earlier. I have trim different in one room to the next and it is so close that until the sunlight hits it from the east early in the morning I cannot tell it. One is mayonnaise and one is a definite taupe gray. I agree that once you add all your other elements, it will not be noticeable. Decorator and DIL told me it would be a disaster. Now I forget it and my DIL has not noticed it nor does she know, probably, that is what I did. I am sure she would mention it if she noticed it. That's what DILs are for. ;-)

Thanks for all the replies! I hope in real life it will not look like a mistake to have the vanity brighter white than the trim and bath doors. Looks like you most think the trim should be a consistent colour.

@cyn427: Thanks for your vote. I will look again in different lights to see if the vanities can be painted Alabaster. So far they look better in Snowbound given the tile choices, etc.

@Voila: I am very glad to hear you once had a vanity in a different white than your trim and it looked good. I do think, as you mentioned above, once it is done and the accents are in, I won't notice it. Counter tops depend on the bathroom , but they will be quartz (Cambria Parys, Cambria Whitney and Cambria Greystone). All of the baths look better in Snowbound, but the kitchen definitely looks better in Alabaster. Thanks!

@patricia43: Thanks for giving me your vote and relaying your experience with different trim colours. LOL about the DIL comments (no DIL here, but we have three sons so we will one day have lots of DILs I suspect).

Any other thoughts?

Carol

Don't worry about it. I used to fret about all the details. I learned they didn't matter one year later. Are you healthy? Happy? Safe? Loved? These are things to worry about. Comes with age and experience. Not only were the trim and vanity different in this small bathroom, the subway tile did not match the tub (creamier) or the toilet. So creamy tile and vanity, whiter tub, toilet and trim. Mix it up and it looks intentional.

Why match your trim to your cabinets? I would do a white through out. I like my trim to stand out from my wall color and wood work.

Thanks voila for your words of wisdom! I am glad to hear mixing whites has worked for you.

Kitch4me: Thanks for your comments. Truthfully, I had not thought about doing a whiter trim throughout the house. Somewhere, I thought I read to match the trim to your kitchen cabs if they are white. We also will have Alabaster white built-ins in the great room. I am very open to your idea though?

What does everyone think about just doing the SW Snowbound (a crisper, brighter white) throughout the house trim, doors, vanities, and having the slightly warmer white (Alabaster) on the kitchen cabs and built-ins? We will also have crown molding over the kitchen cabs and built-ins. In this scenario, should that match the cab white or the trim white?

Carol

Our trim is the same color throughout the house. The kitchen cabinets and one bathroom vanity are different white. (This was all done by the real estate agent who listed the house for the estate we bought from). It looks just fine. I have not even the slightest urge to make them match and I can be a little obsessive about things either matching exactly or being very different. I find that in a bathroom especially there are a lot of different whites, tub, sink, tile, trim, vanity. All the subtle differences look just fine to me.

No. Do the trim in the bathrooms (and the insides of the bathroom doors) the "right" white for the bathrooms, even if that's a different trim from the rest of the house. Think about it--when you or your guests are in the bathroom, most of the time the door will be closed, right? So they'll see the whole bathroom but not the other rooms.

I got this from Maria Killam who is wonderful with colors (and is also a Canadian) and if you don't know of her blog I highly recommend you google and find it!

She has a lot to say about subtle clashes and differing undertones and how oftentimes when a room looks "off" or "wrong" somehow and you don't know why, that's the reason.

Also it's not really my business but I have to say that poster who told you you shouldn't worry about an answer to your question as long as you're healthy and someone loves you was annoying. That could be said for every message on GardenWeb, and for that matter it could be said for nearly every forum on the internet! If you were interested in learning about chess and you posted a question about some complicated chess move and someone replied and said Hey, as long as you're loved and happy you shouldn't worry about figuring out this chess move, that would be irritating. Plus, maybe you're NOT healthy and loved. For all we know, you just got diagnosed with cancer and your husband just left you--but you still deserve to have pleasing, balanced-feeling rooms in your home!!

Anyway, read Maria Killam's blog pages about whites.

I have the same trim throughout my small (1250 sf) house. My kitchen cabs are a much creamier white. The two colors meet in just two places: 5" of baseboard on either side of the kitchen where the cabinets end and the rest of the house continues. I can see a difference. Do I care? Not at all. It's immaterial to me.

@crl: Glad to hear you are not bothered by the different whites. You are correct that a bathroom will have tons of different whites anyway. In fact, i just read an old post on this topic where member GreenDesigns stated there were benefits of mixing whites as it adds depth.

@LongTimeLurker: Thanks for your comments. I am a big Maria Killam fan. I have learned tons from her books and blog. I even have her SW paint boards. However, she had opened my eyes to how easy it is to make mistakes with clashing undertones. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. So you saw somewhere on her blog where she said it was okay to have a change in trim/door colour in different rooms in the house? I will have to look for that. Do you happen to know where you read that on her blog?

BTW I was not at all upset by the comment that if you are healthy, happy, loved ... . I took to mean don't sweat the small stuff which I believe is very true. But like I said Maria Killam hasn't gotten me hypersensitive to undertones and colour selection.

@linelle: Thanks for letting me know in real life you are not bothered by the trim and kitchen cabs being different. Food for thought.

Carol

Ahh... I will tell you how I learned that from her--I did a telephone consultation with her! Somewhere on GW I did a little review of my call with her and I could try to find the link but basically here is the part that relates, I think, to your question:

My kitchen cabinets are creamy off-white painted. The main rooms in my house are a light warm-gray color. I believe she would call it almost a green-grey but to me it just looks light grey. :-) So because of those two factors, the trim throughout the house is a warmer white, maybe even an off-white. I was using Sherwin Williams colors but if you want I can check the color names I used.

So my bathrooms have standard white toilets, sinks, and tiles, and one of them has white beadboard. The off-white creamy trim throughout the rest of the house would have looked "off" in the bathrooms against all that pure white. Yes, I know the toilets are not the exact same white as the sinks are not the exact same white as the tiles, but they're all pretty darn close. So for the bathroom trim Maria told me to go with a different Sherwin Williams color, I forgot which one but it was definitely a brighter, more "white" white than the trim for the rest of the house. There's no doubt that was the right decision. The creamy off-white trim would have looked terrible had it been taken through into the bathrooms.

I do remember the color she specified for my bathroom walls: it's Sherwin Williams Tidewater. Look that up on google images--it's nice against pure white. It would be nice against a creamy off-white too, but anyway. I have to say I totally recommend Maria Killam and I love her blog. I wish I'd found her before I redid the kitchen because I probably wouldn't have ended up with the creamy cabinets, for this reason -- they limit the ability to have pure white trim throughout the main living areas.

Anyway. That's my very long explanation for saying you should have the bathrooms "internally consistent" and I hope it made sense and was of some bit of use to you! I did conclude my "report" about my call with her by saying I would recommend her consultation service, so if you're willing to invest $500, she can definitely give you some ideas and specific color names.

LongTimeLurker:

Thank you ever so much for the detailed, very helpful reply.

I do remember the post you did to review your call with her. I found your post a few weeks back by Googling Gardenweb and Maria Killam. What I didn't remember was your name, just the post. It is very interesting that she recommended changing the trim in the bathroom. How does that look at the bathroom doors where one side is the creamier white and the other the crisper white? It would be very helpful to me if you could look up your colours for the bath trim, main house trim and even cabinet colour. I have to use SW colours as that is what the cabinet maker uses. My kitchen cabinets is creamier than a white out of the can white, but still quite white.

BTW, I have seen that Tidewater colour. Maria has that as one of her colour boards for SW that I just bought. It is lovely. I hope to use that colour somewhere in my house.

Thanks again. Nice to communicate with another Maria Killam fan.

Carol