For white or pastel choices on trim, Cabinet Coat, Muralo Satin Flow or Satin Impervo Waterborne are great products. To recolor the dark trim with a dark cherry or mahagony color, I recommend you sample the one step products by Minwax, Olympic or Varathane stains. They work well. Michael

I have had two experiences with this issue. 1. When we moved into a 1924-era condo in Hyde Park, Chicago, all the oak woodwork was painted various ugly colors. This was 1985. One room, we decided to "spruce up", and the easiest way to do this was to carefully remove all the woodwork (baseboard, doors, etc.) and take it to a local company which would strip them all, by immersing them into a large tank. Although it was expensive, the results were much better than we could have done. We finished them "naturally". Before we could do more, we moved away because of a job transfer to the house we have now. 2. In 1989, We moved into an 1895 house on Long Island. The woodwork had been painted white, but on the second floor, it was all crackled, probably because of poor preparation. We lived with it for 32 years, until a few months ago when we decided to sell it and, on the recommendation of our RE agent, we had one of the rooms professionally repainted, including the woodwork. It looks much better, but not perfect. If I were going to stay (!), I might have repeated what we did in Chicago, but I'm not sure there is a place which does that locally.

What are you doing for ceiling colors? All ours are Buckram Binding and it does well with our dark woods. Our living room is Hubbard Squash and the LR windows face west. It's great. Our last house on Lex. Pkwy So. (Just south of Grand Ave) had 1 Portrait Tone bedroom, 1 Studio Green bedroom, Rembrandt Ruby and Strawberry Thief wallpaper in the DR. House sold in 9 days. The rest of the house used other of the AC colors. Glad you're hanging in there!

This is one of those things you can cross off your list of things to worry about - there is no need to "match" or "blend" anything - just let it be a room with dark woodwork and wainscotting - you want a dining room to feel intimate and with the right lighting (candlelight?) Ill bet it would look stunning. Im assuming the woodwork throughout the house is all orginal, whether painted or not, and the trim all has the same profile thoughout the house? Thats all the consistency you need I think. Where it starts to look goofy and mismatched is when they yank out the original woodwork and put in cheap chintzy modern trim in some places, but leave the original trim in other places. That has the look of a cheap cheesy slumlord remuddle.