I am using BM Decorators White. No reason except it's not white-white & many designers that I have read on-line have always referenced it in their work/portfolio. In real light it provides enough of a pop without being 'torch your eye' white! Sorry - that is the only words of wisdom i have & no magic formula or template. :)

Well...I s'pose you could do a different sheen on the crowns (may even look kinda cool!), but then you'd be buying the same color in 2 sheens! I was just being silly, with my preference for s/g in these cases! It's more durable for baseboards, etc. Faron

While in pics my molding appears to be similar to the walls, they're actually very different in person. The walls have a significant amount of texture and color in them and the wood is of course smooth and shiny and different in tone. I also have the opposite in my victorian where the crown molding is painted but the doors and trim are not. Again, no racing stripes. Now in that last kitchen....we don't see the kitchen well. Personally it does get that racing thing visually from a computer because it appears that the chair rail, base board and crown are all the same, with no differentation in the wallcovering or color between, hence the stripe. Now closer up we might find that the lower area has a texture that defines it....which might make it work nicely in person, but on the computer, it does look terrible. But that's the chair rail. Remove it from the pic and you have no race stripes. Boring room maybe :P But no stripes ;) IMO Painting that molding would do nothing to effect the stripe issue. Painting the walls (lower) a different color to accentuate the molding would solve the issue immediately :) But it's again a different issue since the OP does not have a chair rail problem. I have several rooms with different molding colors on the window verses the crown, as well as rooms where the crown and the toe don't match. They look lovely. No stripes :) just nice finishes designed to work within the room they're in. The reason the house flows well though is because I kept the main trim (windows) the same color. In this case the OP can do either and either will look nice. Because the mantle build out is the same color as the molding it would flow well together, but given it's also a specific item (mantel) it can have that furniture look by painting the other molding and leaving it the wood tone on the actual mantel portion. Mantel? Mantle? Manaties? gad I'm a spelling idiot!

Thanks for the input. For some reason I cannot picture my crown being white with the other trim elements being stained. Dunno why. But if you say yours looks good, I do believe you. My house is a little ranch style 2/2 that we are remodeling from builder grade stuff to 'us'. It is a dwelling that is on a large piece of land that we use as our facility for training horses so I can feel pretty free to do what I want, since any potential buyers down the road will likely be more interested in the barn and land than the house, LOL! I have put rough slate on the kitchen floor, scabos travertine on the backsplash, and pretty much done it up in the kitchen altho I did not go custom with cabinets - used Ikea - and am thrilled, BTW. It looks great, IMO. The Acacia wood floor is so cool - natural graining and lots of movement. Altho I like the crisp, creamy trim against the darker wall color, I think using stained or even raw cedar boards with a sealing finish would be very appropriate. I also have some great cypress logs that I would like to bring into it if I can find a way. None of that - IMO - marries that well to the rather colonial looking white moldings that I presently have. Hub will be puzzled at my wanting to redo what looks pretty good right now, but as an artist and first time home redecorator in my 50s I aint wantin' to do it any way other than MY way! LOL! If I did NOT want to keep the crown white, does anyone have any suggestions / opinions? Pics are always appreciated, of course and would not mind seeing pics of that 1926 Tudor, if you have any. I dont really know how to post pics but would do so if it would help and someone can point me to directions. Ceilings in my house, BTW, are 8 feet. I am open to creative ideas and only limited by money as the husband is open too!