Hi Roobear While I like the contrast of your dark trim against your pretty paint colors I can understand your dilemma. We just remodeled our bath and office and decided to change out the stained medium oak baseboard trim to white. Here is what we did that you might want to consider: Because the stained trim is narrow and I really like the look of a wider trim, we purchased MDF 5 1/4 inch pre-primed baseboard molding from Home Depot. It is very inexpensive and only needed 2 coats of paint. Looks so good that we are going to replace the hallway and master bedroom next. It really gives the rooms a whole different look, and if you are going to go to all the work of removing the trim, sanding, priming and painting you might want to consider an inexpensive and easy option. As for the windows. I painted them too. I left them open for a couple of days after and they seemed to be ok. The key it to make sure they are really dry before shutting the window. Good luck. Your room is pretty no matter what you decide. JR

Like the pergola over the garage door idea. If built to be sturdy enough to walk on it, then it could serve as a fire escape route should the need ever arise -- certainly hope it never does. You might also consider painting your step rails and side supports the same color as your siding unless you're planning to have a wood finish door and/or a rustic porch and post addition over the entry at a later date, in which case you'd want those additions to have the same wood finish. (Might apply to any pergola over the garage as well.) https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=images+rustic+porch+and+post+entry&qpvt=images+rustic+porch+and+post+entry&FORM=IGRE

Oh dear. Another "Can't find more of the vinyl floor to finish my house" thread. For this reason, I prefer the 'stone' or 'tile' look of vinyl in a kitchen. That way a wood-look product can be added to the living spaces at a later date and NOTHING will look amiss. But now the wood-look stuff is in the kitchen AND there is no match in the living area. If you want more vinyl, then you will have to work with another 'look'. Like stone or tile. But wait. That looks bass akwards! Stone in the living areas and wood in the kitchen? Sigh. Now the painful part of partial renovations comes into focus. If you want something other than carpet, you will have to stay away from 'wood look' if you want to have your home look nice. You have very, very few choices. If you want continuous flooring throughout the house: 1. Remove the kitchen floor and start again = refinish the entire house in a single floor finish If you want the CHEAPEST option: 2. Replace the carpet with more carpet If you want a NICE finish but do NOT want more wood look: 3. Cork floating flooring (natural cork will match both the oak trim AND the kitchen flooring) 4. Sheet linoleum in some colour you like (it will look like a children's daycare...) If you want SOMETHING other than carpet and don't care about the look of two woods: 5. More vinyl or laminate in a wood-look 6. Vinyl or laminate in a STONE OR TILE look (it looks REALLY WACKY...but totally doable) I'm sorry you had to find this out the hard way. You have essentially painted yourself into a design corner by using wood look vinyl in the kitchen. As for painting the oak finishes (that's a lot of stripping + painting) I would figure out the FLOORING decision WELL BEFORE you figure out the wood features.

Short answer to your subject head - yep! Yall are correct - skinny oak trim is nothing special, but then neither is PAINTED skinny oak trim. If anything the skinniness is accentuated more by white paint. I fail to see that as an improvement. If I was to paint it, I would paint it out entirely - ie same color as walls. That can be a nice, clean, uncluttered modern look. That said - I would actually keep the wood windows and possibly doors. Taking a close look at yours, they do look pretty solid and functional, and yeah - its not early 1900s quarter sawn oak, but still.... the wood of 60 yrs ago is vastly superior to the awful splintery stuff they call wood nowadays. Besides, painted windows and doors can start to look really messy as time goes on and it interferes with the function. If they are still functioning well I would definitely keep them in good repair as long as possible. Sure you can keep wood elements and paint out rest - just keep consistent through the house and again consider painted trim same as wall color to avoid/lessen visual clutter. As others have said - slow down! Take stock of what you have before indiscriminantly removing or making irreversible changes. Often what seemed so danged urgent or important at first becomes much less so after a while. BTW, I would be leery of any designer who proclaims hatred of any species of wood or color of the spectrum.