"In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now, G*d knows, anything goes..." Those immortal words & the jazzy, syncopated tune that accompanied them are by the late, great Cole Porter, whose business it was to be attuned to all the latest fads & foibles of the fashionable set, and these days, it's kind of the same way with the question of chair rails & where to put the dark color, too. People remind me all the time that "There are no rules!" Please. There are always rules, and just because a lot of people ignore them--or never bothered to learn them in the first place--doesn't mean they don't exist, and like the judge says, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Knowing how (and when) to break a rule is one of the skilled decorator's greatest tricks, but in order to make it work, you first have to know the rules. Otherwise, it's meaningless. Decorating without rules is like playing tennis without the net: what's the point? Of course, we live in a free country, so people can put the dark color below the chair rail if they want, but doing it that way is a fairly recent development, dating not much further back than the time the time Madonna wore her bra on top of her sweater, setting off a tacky (and, fortunately, short-lived) fad among the middle-schoolers in the town where I used to live. That's kind of what I think of whenever I hear someone proclaim "There are no rules!" The Green Room at the White House after Theodore Rooselvelt's renovations. Anyway, that dark-color-on-the-bottom bit took off after somebody on one of the early cable decorating shows did it that way, and since then, it's become common, but historically speaking--especially when it's traditional decorating you're talking about in the first place--it's all wrong, and for a good reason. Here's the thing: in decorating, most "rules"--if you take the time to do any research about them--originated with simple practicality & common sense. Historically, dark paint (or fabric, or wallpaper)--that is, the expensive stuff, what with the high cost of pigments--went on the upper walls because that's where people would see it, not down below the chair rail, where it would not only be below eye level--especially when seated at a dining table--but where it would also be partially obscured by furniture pushed up flat against the walls, which is where the term "straightening a room" came from. If the woodwork--including the chair rail, which was there not for aesthetics but to protect expensive materials & fragile plaster--was painted at all in such a room, it was generally painted white, because white paint (or lime wash) was cheap & it could be refreshed easily when it got dingy. Anyway, that's the logic behind the traditional dark-above-light-below color distribution. Even if the specific reasons for that distribution no longer apply, the look still seems right, especially in a traditional decor. If a designer (or decorator) decides to ignore historical precedent for one reason or another, that's one thing, but if he or she is truly unaware of it, I'd start to worry, because such historical background is part of the traditional education in the field. Ignorance of that of thing would be a big red flag to me. Kind of like the be-jeweled & be-scarfed "designer" I met at a suburban decorator showhouse who--totally without irony--referred to blotchy mess of a would-be Venetian plaster wall as having "a lovely faux-pas finish." It was the funniest thing I'd heard in a week. Regards, MAGNAVERDE

white no comment on the paint selection

For trim (with almost any color), I have always used Pratt & Lambert's Silver Lining. If you go to a P&L dealer, they can make up a quart-sized sample (eggshell only) for like $7...it is a great trim color. HTH

I think that will be pretty. Your trim work looks very similar to mine - dark stained pine, so don't hesitate to paint it - I painted mine many years ago. You have a warm toned home. So consider staying with warm tones. If you want color, SW Sea Salt has green, blue and gray tones, but works well with warm woods: From Hooked on Houses: Computer do not show true colors well, but I have a cream with a hint of beige. This is the upstairs hall with a beadboard wainscot: https://www.houzz.com/photos/my-pics-work-in-progress-phvw-vp~88642832 That color is a little warmer than the Sea Salt. It is also the color I have in my kitchen - pics in my "my pics" idea book.