Why not another color than white which is less of a contrast to your natural wood trim? I have three thoughts, all of which to keep in mind approximating the Tone of your natural wood: 1) if your walls are papered pick a color from the paper (or shade darker than the back ground,) if painted go a shade darker than the paint I assume that the paper or paint looks good against the natural door trim so why not a color from it? 2) Assuming that the wood has some varying tones to it, choose a middle range toward the dark of the woodwork and paint the baseboard that color. 3) Apply above ideas to what ever your floor is like. Before doing the whole thing buy a quart and either paint just a few feet of baseboard around the big door you are most worried about or paint some poster board strips and put them along there. Leave for a couple of days to decide. Goodluck and post pics, I'd love to see what you decide. (Ps my apologies if I forgot what you said about your walls, so many posts!) Lauren, I love your hall color, just painted my living room /dining room that color (with ivory trim). kathy

That's a very good question...I have done the opposite and painted baseboards same color as the wall and left door trim and molding white. I did it in three rooms. Here is a sample of what it looks like,...sorry I did not get crown in the picture. You can see what the base looks like meeting the door trim though. I got the idea to do this from the Benjamin Moore Aura paint site. They may have a picture to address your question on that site if you take a look! (just Google it you will find it) Here is the photo: http://photos.gardenweb.com/home/galleries/2008/11/benjamin_moore_lenox_tan_in_au.html

No rules, all personal choice. We have a similar-but-not situation in our kitchen right now---we actually did match our cabinets to the trim in the kitchen and throughout the house (the trim and ceilings in an old house with lots of built-ins were painted Acadia White by the old owner). So rather than try to find a different white, we just had the cabinets done in Acadia White too. But...our trim and doors are all in oil-based paint, and that's no longer available where we live, so the cabs and new trim are all in water-based, which doesn't yellow like oil-based does. In our kitchen, that meant our doors and windows were one shade and our cabinets and trim (which we replaced) were another shade. Though it's all officially the same color, the old paint is much creamier/yellower than the new paint, which is much whiter---probably similar to the effect you'd have. It did bug me in the beginning, but now I'm actually used to it and it looks normal. (We're eventually replacing the doors so didn't bother repainting them; the windows will stay mismatched since they're a PITA to repaint and current paint job is in good condition.) I think the key is consistency, though, as palimpsest said. As long as all the trim is the same color and all the cabinets are the same color, it's less critical that it be exactly the same color, I think---though personally I do prefer when it is.

Remember of course that this isn't a permanent irrevocable change. If anyone wants to turn your house into a museum, they will have to change whatever you put in anyway and it won't be hard. Knobs are like wall paint. They aren't permanent. (I admit I looked high and low--and ended very low--to find knobs to match my original small brass 50s mushroom knobs. But I like them!)