Dear All -

My wife and I brought a wonderful house last year that is a great fit for our family of four. The house has a lot of charms, but also a lot of projects. One project that I am having trouble "visioning" is with our trim.

The house was built in 1978, and had 2.5 inch trim that is in a darker stain. I believe the wood is pine, but I can't be sure. When the windows were replaced in 2004, the new window trim was aligned to match the older trim. However, a few years later new homeowners install hardwood flooring throughout the house, and had it a lighter shade of wood. The new baseboards match the wood flooring, and are 3.5 inches. As you can see from the photos below, there is a bit of a mismatch throughout the house, as a number of doors on the first level are original, and are dark and match the existing trim, while the upstairs has new doors that match the new trim.

The house does not get much natural light, especially in the summer, as 3/4 of the house is shaded by trees, which does help the AC bill. Many of the rooms and hallways are dark, and the house is not all that inviting. The existing staircase wooden and looks nice, although it is the darker stain, and doesn't match the flooring at the bottom and top of the stairs

One of our long-term project is to install crown molding through most of the house, and we will paint that a semi-glossy white, in part as a way to brighten up some of the rooms. My question is whether we should 1) paint the baseboards to match the crown molding when we install the latter, and 2) should the new doors we install on the lower level of the house (two closet doors, one pocket door, and one hall door) that match the doors upstairs that match the existing flooring or should these doors be white to match the crown molding and brighten up the house? Any thoughts would be appreciated!