I vote for a stained finish. Most of the furniture in the family room will be wood or have wood trim, right?, so more white might be too bright. In addition, if you have Arts & Crafts tiles around the fireplace, the stained tiles (deep reds, deep greens, golds?) would be much better with wood.

Painted. To provide visual continuity throughout the entire space .....

You could paint the backs of open shelves in a deep earthy tone to work with the tiles.

Jan at Rosemary Cottage

I agree you should paint white to provide continuity between the spaces. Also, I love Jan's idea of painting the backs of the shelves, but I wouldn't go too dark. Your space sounds wonderful.

It would depend for what exposure that room is. If it is a southern or western exposure with lots of windows and light I would stain it, but if it is a northern exposure or even eastern, I would paint it to brighten that area. I made that mistaken once in a home we built. We had a north eastern exposure, the room looked great in the morning with the sunlight but as the afternoon rolled around I found the room too dark, even though we had big windows.

I also vote for painted. Your furniture in the middle of the room can be wood but the perimeter would flow being stained and give you flexibility for decorating down the road.

If you feel it is bright, you can do a darker tone wall and let the mantel and built ins "pop" and be noticed.

If the trim in the rest of your house is going to be white, and the cabinets are going to be white, it makes the most sense to have the built-ins be white, as well. Otherwise it looks kind of odd...almost like someone was painting all the trim and got to the built ins and just got lazy.

I have a similar situation, and mine is stained. I like it very much. Perhaps it works because the kitchen island, as well as the visible staircase, are also stained. Sorry, no pics.

Thanks for all the quick replies so far!

roseabby: It's southern exposure, so there will be a lot of good natural light.

Well, how about a third option? We have a similar situation, and ended up painting the built-ins the same color as the wall (but high gloss), since all white seemed like it would be too stark, and stained seemed like it might appear to be a dark hole, or too much contrast. The wall is a pale taupe-y white, I guess you'd call it.

Kitchen seen from family room

Not finished yet, but painted: you can see white trim and painted built-ins together here, as well as stained furniture. We did stain the main shelf, similarly to the floor.

Here it is with fireplace finished

segbrown: what a great home! It looks so comfortable and inviting! Thanks for sharing another way to approach it.