Barb - I love your ideas. And it is so funny that you wrote about Powell Buff. I have about 5 samples of that plastered in different places in my kitchen. Also, I had to laugh about how nice you were with calling my foyer a grand foyer. :) I come from a 1300 sq. ft 1920's house (just moved about 4 months ago to PA from upstate NY). I call my foyer, a waste of space. I would much rather have another bedroom upstairs for a playroom, crafts, etc. Not that I'm in need of space, but I'm not one much for tall spaces. Small and cozy does the trick for me. Just weren't those kind of houses for sale where I was looking...at least not that we could afford. Anyhow - back to the task at hand. My house completely connects - the kitchen to the family (almost one room). The family has a back staircase (another silly thing), that runs to the hallway upstairs that connects to the foyer downstairs. So in other words, every room upstairs and downstairs connects. ugh. So my plan is that all trim in the connecting part of the house (minus LR, DR and bedrooms) will be Navajo White. Because that matches my kitchen cabinetry. And all ceilings will be Navajo White as well. This is being painted during nap times by me. (which is why it takes me too long to respond to the GW forum!) Yesterday, I managed to prime all of the trim in my foyer downstairs. Hurray! So, whatever is in my walls on the foyer needs to run to the upstairs hallway, which runs into one wall in the family room and will also be in the kitchen. blah. So I'm thinking of using Powell Buff for that color. I'm hoping it is a good match to Navajo White. Three walls in the family room will be SW Baguette. I'm very happy with this color. Just wishing that I didn't have the whole back staircase issue that makes everything connect. So Powell and Baguette, with Navajo will be the two primary colors in the downstairs. I could always consider Wilmington Tan for the LR/DR trim. Only issue is that it doesn't look quite as good with the Stickley furniture and sitll might be too dark around the windows. But perhaps you were on the right track by suggesting Powell Buff for the trim. Maybe something with that depth, just another color (because I will be using that in my other spaces.) OR I could just flipflop those rooms and use Powell on the trim and Navajo on the walls? Would that be strange, too? I'm not sure if any of this post will make sense. I'm sorry to ramble. Perhaps, if you are interested I can post more pictures of my space to help it make more sense. I've been working on this since I moved in, and now that things are finally getting primed, I need to make decisions so that I can get to the exciting part. In any event, thank you again for your advice and help. I am so grateful! Carolyn (aka repainting, again, and again)

I much prefer the look of painted risers. I have found that scuff marks seem to depend a lot on the kind of paint you use. In our last house, we pulled up carpet and painted the risers with a latex semi-gloss paint. They scuffed horribly and I was constantly repainting them (because they scuffed so bad I couldn't get them clean). In this house, which was painted with Ben Moore OIL based semi-gloss, the stair risers hardly ever scuff. Same people, same shoes -- only difference is the paint. Now, we can no longer get oil paint in our state and our stair area really needs repainted (the walls are wood paneled and painted in the same paint as the risers) so I started putting Zinsser 123 over the oil paint in preparation for repainting it with latex. I got interrupted, so only a few steps have the 123. They too are scuffing horribly. They're only primer, so I wouldn't expect it to hold up, but still - it's amazing the difference between scuff level after just a few days. I'm planning to repaint with Cabinet Coat by Insul-X, which is the toughest latex trim paint I have found. It has held up well on my baseboards so I'm hoping it will be good on the risers. If not, I guess I could make an out-of-state trip to smuggle in some oil paint, LOL!

Hi BC. Yes. The trim, and even all my interior doors, in the whole house is Simply White. Purposely and not. I wanted white trim and every bit of trim in the house was replaced in our whole house reno. So...needed to pick a white. Kitchen, open to FR and semi-open to DR and LR, cabs were going to be white. So...needed a white. We replaced all the doors in the house. Since the trim was white, I wanted white doors. So...needed a white. See where I'm going with this? Since the crown around the other rooms continues onto the kitchen cabs and the base trim runs into the cabs, I wanted the whites to match. Therefore, once I picked a cab color (Simply White), I used that throughout the house for doors, trim, and built-ins. I've lived too many years with mismatched doors, trim, doorknobs, pulls, etc. that I wanted the house to look pulled together and cohesive like someone put some thought into it. HTH!

OK I will tell you that until you know what your countertops will be, picking color for your cabinets is going to be very tricky. As to BM Simply White for trim, that is in the Yellow Hue family, and it has a Chroma of .5 which means it has very little color in it; and it has an LRV (light reflective value) of 90. 100 is highest reflective number so that will reflect a lot of light. Nice for trim, and I like "satin" for the finish. Now for wall color. BM White Dove has a Chroma of .58 and an LRV of 83. We like more separation of Chroma (at least .20) and this is way too close. I don't think that will work. So you are in a tricky spot not knowing some key variables such as countertop colors. I think if you want light colors, I would do either of these two colors, but use different "finishes". It will vary from room to room due to light conditions. Since your carpet is tan, and your flooring is dark brown, I think I would lean toward the BM White Dove since it has a bit more warmth to it than Simply White. SW Alabaster has nice lightness and many have used it for both trim and walls, etc. Use Satin finish for your trim, flat or matte for walls and ceiling.