Ha! A very timely question for me. I just spent all weekend staining, and it was quite an ordeal. I had to wear a long-sleeved shirt to work today because my forearms are covered with stain! (Fortunately it turned chilly today.) We finished probably half of the casings, but we still have the rest of those to do, plus all the baseboards and crown moulding, all the doors, and the stair parts. (The floor will be prefinished.) It is seeming a little overwhelming at this point, especially since it didn't go that well this weekend. We are using fluted casing with rosette corner blocks around the windows and doors. The 3-inch casings for upstairs turned out ... let's just say acceptable. Then we started on one of the 4-inch casings for the downstairs ... it looked like total crap! It was a different wood and reacted COMPLETELY differently to the stain. So, we messed with it for a while and came up with something that will work. I think. I'm just nervous because we're going to have several different woods that will have to coordinate (fir exterior doors, clear pine interior doors and windows, pine base and crown, oak floor, spruce trim and whatever-the-hell the other trim is). One of the biggest problems I have found, at least in my area, is that stores right now are not really set up to serve people who want to stain. Most people are painting trim in my area, so everything is geared toward that. Everything is available in paint grade, but if you want decent trim to stain, be prepared for varying degrees of hassle everywhere you go. So, it's not just the stress of getting the work done but also first locating the materials and persevering until you get your hands on them - in adequate quantities. The good news is, they started trimming the upstairs windows this morning, and it's looking beautiful! I think it will be worth it. Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: My progress blog

I have a few more options. What do you think? Palimpsest, I did the one panel like you suggested and fixed the heights. I also like the idea of doing sort of a raised panel look, either in the color of the trim (with everything the same color) or else in the color of my book cases so it could mimic the book cases on the other wall (they will be stained blue) Any of these options look good? If I went with option 4 or 5, I'd probably have the paneling look more like this than exactly like above: Either painted trim color or painted in the blue.

How high are your base cabinets including countertop? I'm getting a different number, about 99" to the top of your cabinets. Base cabinets are usually about 36" including countertop. Wall cabinets are normally placed 18" above that. If you add those plus the 42" for your wall cabinets and 3" for the cove molding, you should get 99" to the top. In any event, I would install a modified version of your three piece trim. I would install the trim right over any soffit, so now you've incorporated them and you don't need any extra space for soffit alone. Even if you want a separate soffit or go another way, if you paint everything white (trim and soffit), your eye will not go right to the splash of color above the cabinets. If you only have 9" of play left over, maybe you want to skip the picture rail and use the cove molding from your cabinets as the bottom piece instead. For instance, install the 3" crown molding and a 6" flat board to make up your extra 9" of space. Then right underneath that, you'd have your 3" cove molding and then your cabinets. The only problem would be making it work with the adjoining dining room where it meets the kitchen trim. Does that room already have the 3-piece trim? If so, you could do this modified version above the cabinets only and then continue the rest of the kitchen with the original 3" crown, 8" flat board and 2" picture rail.

I can't do all the trim in the rest of the house SuperWhite because it was just painted with the Decorators White. We had to cover the White Dove or Linen so Romy, I know exactly what difference you are talking about. The painter felt that going to the SuperWhite would require more coats and cost more money than going to the Decorator's White. But at the same time, he said that I wouldn't really notice the difference between the Decorator's white and the SuperWhite and that maybe all the molding should be Decorator's White to have one color. Good idea to have him test it. Maybe one version is just the cabinet molding SuperWhite, satin sheen and the adjacent Decorator White Semi-gloss. The different sheens might give the illusion it is the same color but just a different sheet. I could also try all Decorator's White Semi. There is some of the Decorator's white on the door to the dining room which borders the kitchen cabinets but the lighting isn't very good there to compare the two colors side by side. Thank you! Thank you!