Hello Miss Marble! Most paint companies recommend washing walls for the absolute best results. Use TSP mixed with water, or a no-rinse substitute. Dirtex is another good wall-washer. Rinse well, and let dry for a day. >>> I realize you're just "refreshing" the same color, but after a decade, I would "prime anew!", and then put on TWO coats of your color. Color and SHEEN are much more consistent when you prime. >>> The chemical bond (adhesion) is improved when priming. Paint sticks to new primer MUCH better than paint-to-10yr.-old-paint... This'll help! Faron

I would definitely notice because I am just a tad obsessed with trim, and I consider a variety of trim to be a feature, not a mistake. In fact, in houses where everything matches, especially if it's boring trim, my eye desperately wanders the place in search of variety! I realize that's unusual. The rules of decorating to objective standards do dictate matching or at least harmonizing trim, and it can have a nice unifying effect. I think the primary question is really this: do YOU care if your trim all matches? Do you want to meet an objective standard (for example, to put the house on the market), or just your own? If you do care, then the other question is: what kind of trim do you want in your house? If you like the original, then you want to at least harmonize with that as per your plan. But if you don't like the original anyway, I wouldn't feel bound by it at all. It doesn't really sound like something that any other trim would "clash" with, even if it's not mitred. (Unlike Palimpsest, I'm not reading that you like the original - maybe I'm missing something). You could probably do a mock-up with paper panels to see if your idea would meet your standards. FWIW, I live in what Palimpsest describes, a hundred year-old house which already had a couple of kinds of trim when we moved in, the 100-year old and the 50-year old (in the addition). I love the 100, and hate the 50, although we have lived with the 50 for 16 years and are just getting around to changing it. But we lost a bunch of the 100 because we changed some of the doorway sizes when we renovated the old part of the house at the outset. We chose one primary style then to replace it, but already can't get that one any more... it's too wide for some applications anyway... and I like different mouldings anyway... so our house is (or will be when it's all installed) a mish mash. I look down my hallway (it's a linear house) and see four successive doorways with four different trims. And yes, I even have a couple of corner-blocked openings in a houseful of mostly miters. It's possible that it works because the house is old and eclectic anyway, or because it's the opposite of open-plan, or that I just can't see that it doesn't work :-) Mitering can be difficult if you don't have either good angles or the right tools (a miter saw and accurate ways to measure and transcribe), and takes some practice. There are right and wrong ways to do it, and a correct sequence in which to do the pieces - information is, as always, available on line. If you're painting, you can fill cutting mistakes, but I suspect it would show. KarinL

Hmmm, my rooms look good to me during the day and also at night. Your question, though, has gotten me thinking as to why they do. And why other rooms wouldn't. I always first decorate a room during the day. And then add, subtract or change what doesn't work during the evenings, if that makes sense. I need my rooms to feel cozy, comfortable and welcoming at all times, as I'm a person who is greatly affected by my surroundings. Ideas: - Lighting: I always have enough lamps with warm, 3-way bulbs to give any room a cozy feeling at night. Lamps tall enough to be useful for reading. Too-small lamps look clutter-y to me. Perhaps eliminating some of the candle clutter in favor of a few lamps with 3-way bulbs that have a low first setting might help? - Color: all my rooms tend to have warm colors, rather than cool colors. My walls are all painted a warm cream. Not a dark tannish cream, but a light, almost-white cream. A more blue-ish white, IMO, would make the rooms feel colder (to me). My accent colors are on the warm side, too. If you know me from my years here on this forum, you know that my rooms tend to all be a warm cream with the warm brick floors and an abundance of art, colored accents and Middle Eastern rugs. But, even in my living room, with it's twin cream-colored sofas, there is enough warmer, darker accents around the room to keep it cozy. And lamps. At least in my opinion it does look warm, welcoming and cozy. I can imagine a room with all cool colors that would work, but it would need enough of darker accents via pillows, throws, furniture, art, rugs, etc., and enough lamps to make it feel cozy in the evenings. Well, those are my initial thoughts on your important that is.

The one thing that I would change, if possible, are the solid doors in the upper middle of the cabinet. Is there any way you could have them changed to glass? I think they distract from the display of your lovely pieces, as the doors are the dominant things, to my eye. It would then give you more room to create a pleasing arrangement, with more variety, while still showing some of your place settings and stemware. It may be fairly inexpensive to have glass added to the existing door frames. If that's not possible, then I think you can display some of your glasses, some of your china, but remove most of them and add other things with more color/texture/interest. You might think about adding mirror to the back of the cabinet (or wallpaper, or other paper for color) for sparkle and brightness. This is pretty busy and too full for my taste, but I like the way they interspersed the china and glassware instead of just lining it up, and have added other accessories for interest:I think this one veers back into store display, but would mix up what you're doing now in a more interesting way. And the cabinets are closer in size to yours. I'd still add some more variety, myself. Maybe you could do something like this on a couple of the shelves and add a variety of things on the other shelves: