Painted door/trim or stained door/trim??

13 years ago

My cabinets are creamy white. Our doors/trim all over the first floor are stained oak wood. Should we go with a painted door/trim to match the cabinets? If so, then I'd need to paint the baseboards as well (see 2nd pic). Or should we stick with a stained door/trim to match the rest of the doors on the floor?

(The transom above the door will be replaced with glass.)

This seems like a simple design choice but neither my wife or I can figure it out. Hate to paint over oak but I'm leaning painted.

What would you do???

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Comments (7)

formerlyflorantha
13 years ago
I like the drama of the dark wood up to the transom. It's part of a greater theme.
plllog
13 years ago
My first thought was that I'd match the window trim. Are the rest of the windows in the house painted but not the doors? If so, continue that. At some point in the future, the next owner might curse you as he's removing paint, but I think the dark wood looks out of place with the light kitchen, walls and window trim. Not horrible. Just not unified. It looks more like a puzzle than an accent.

Kitchen's looking good!
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artemis78
13 years ago
I like having door and window trim (and baseboard moulding) match, too. (And since we need to replace all of our moulding, we looked into stripping our window sashes to go stained across the board, and it's a PITA!)

On a totally unrelated note, is that a frameless angled cabinet I spy behind that chair? We have an angled cabinet in our layout and are debating whether to go framed inset or frameless for that piece (we're mixing the two and only using framed where it's critical for aesthetic, like the uppers) and would be curious to get a closer look at yours!
paintergirl94
13 years ago
I think you can go either way: all white or all stain.

If you know a decorative painter in your area, they can do a faux bois on your window trim and make it look like oak.
Here are a couple of examples. First photo, painted french door to match grain of cabinets (also did all the window trim, too) and other one, the pantry doors were originally white and grained to look like cabinets.

Your kitchen is beautiful!!
bickybee
13 years ago
I definitely vote for stained door and trim. That door (and that kitchen in an equally dramatic way) has personality. Why try to make it conform? I think spaces are boring when everything matches everything else. I'm sure you will have other elements in the room which make their own statements. Let that door make it's.

It also make sense for it to be stained if the other doors in the house are also stained. That provides continuity.
colickyboy
Original Author
13 years ago
plllog - the windows outside of our kitchen are stained. does that change your opinion?

artemis78 - good eye! yes, that is an angled frameless cabinet. we chose frameless for the base cabinets b/c (1) they were cheaper, and (2) they can hold more stuff than inset base cabinets. since the wall cabinets are what is at eye level, we went inset for those. and we chose an angled cabinet b/c of our goofy kitchen configuration where the counters stick out on the other side of the wall (we have a small galley kitchen), so the angled cabinet would give more walk-thru space. i know angled cabs are not exactly period in our 1908 house but for that area, we went with practicality over authenticity.

bickybee - i was afraid you'd say that. it's tough to find a good, solid oak stained door. we tried to strip the paint once before and the door just looked terrible.

so tough!
plllog
13 years ago
Either or. Your kitchen has a functionally elegant look. The door and window mismatch is more of a rustic farm look, as in why waste effort matching them when there's real work to do. Which can look interesting and "real" in certain situations, but which I think makes your otherwise finished kitchen look incomplete.

Either strip and stain (or faux paint a la Paintergirl) the window, or paint the door. Either would look fine.

I suppose I lean toward matching the door as well, so like white better if the door will be white, and stain better if the door will be stained, but I don't think that is an issue here, and is more about personal taste. The problem is the mismatched window frame right next to the door frame.