Terri23...here's what we have so far: trim is painted throughout the house, downstairs all doors are Douglas fir to match the windows, upstairs all doors are painted same as trim. All windows, upstairs and down, are Doug fir with painted trim. We are still a work in progress, but here's a few photos of the effect. Hint: on many posts, if you click on the photo it will link you to more pictures if this option has been enabled by the poster. I encourage you to search for more postings by Jaymielo...she has some beautiful examples. Also, check out this thread that I linked below. FWIW, my DH was also skeptical about mixing, but we already had decided on red oak floors and Doug fir windows, so what then do you use for trim? One way or another, you'd have differing woods adjacent, either for the window trim/windows or the baseboards/floor. I think painting the trim ties it all together in a satisfying way and our different woods still compliment each other. Oh, and just to complicate matters, we have some black walnut thrown in to that mix, as well! Here's a shot of some of our stained windows with painted trim From Doors, Windows, Trim From Doors, Windows, Trim The Douglas fir doors: From Doors, Windows, Trim From Doors, Windows, Trim Painted doors From Doors, Windows, Trim Here is a link that might be useful: painted vs. stained

I installed what seemed like miles of window and door trim, baseboard, and shoe mold a few years ago. I painted before installation. I lightly sanded the bare wood, primed with Kilz primer, lightly sanded again, painted one coat, lightly sanded again, and applied a second coat. Poplar trim is a nappy wood, thus the grain raised after each application, requiring the light sanding between coats. At the time, Kilz was the only primer I was used to, but Christoper recommends the Fresh Start a lot. May have to try that in the future. After installation and caulking the nail holes, mitered joints, etc, I touched up the paint. Painting before installation is much faster, eliminates taping, floor protection, etc.

Thanks everybody. The floors are in good shape. The color just does nothing for me. A little background: I've been househunting for two years. Two of my biggest must-have's after school district were a nice kitchen (or a price that would allow me to put in a nice kitchen - but even that was second-best, because the time commitment would have really created a problem for me) and wood floors. This house has by far the nicest kitchen that I have seen in two years. It is far nicer (and more expensive) than anything I could've put in myself - and not very far off my taste, although obviously not exactly what I would have done). But now as closing approaches, I keep thinking about all of the brown and the not particularly large windows and wondering if I just bought a really nice kitchen. (It's a Tudor with some brown siding and brown garage and exterior doors, so the brown theme is inescapable. The roof is brown too, but I need to replace it and think that will be dark gray, in order to preserve my ability to change the color of the siding and the doors and the windows later. Did I forget to mention the dark paneling in the family room and the basement? I'll be painting the paneling in the family room.) I'm being a little crazy. Anyway, I agree rugs would do wonders. I only have two so far, but rugs would be a lot cheaper than refinishing. I will be curious to see what adding the doors to the painting will cost though. There are something like 13 or 14 interior doors, and then all of the closet doors on top of that, and the closet doors are slatted. I'm the other hand, I think I'm going to have to paint them one way or another anyway, so maybe it just makes more sense to do the doors and accept that the floors will be the floors for a long time to come. I just can't decide about the windows. I know it would be reasonably simple to paint the wood windows, but I'm not sure makes sense to do that when about half of them are vinyl. My contractor says he had painted vinyl windows before, and Andersen actually has instructions on how to do it on their site, but he did warn me that they could peel.

We have a mix of woods in our house and think it looks just fine. :-) Our flooring is natural white oak, stairs are natural red oak. Doors and trim, and stair rails are Golden Oak stained red oak and our pine (Andersen) windows and trim were stained to match the doors. The only window that has different trim, is the kitchen window. Because it is sandwiched between our cherry cabs (which have a 25% or quarter-cut Harvest Gold stain), we opted to match the cabs for that window (our cab manuf actually supplied, and stained the cherry trim to match the cabs, and the pine window frame was stained to match as well). We have natural black walnut furniture in our DR--somewhat open to the kitchen. The only thing I'd do differently today, might be to use a less golden/orange, more neutral stain for our doors, trim, windows. Otherwise, I like the way all the wood tones, grains, and colors harmonize together to create a happy, woodsy palette!