apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I am all about the wall and trim being the same color. I am changing my bedroom trim out to match the walls as we speak.

That first photo wow!! what color is that? Minus the antlers that is a dream room, its very adult summer camp country chic!

Your bedroom is gorgeous!

Our kitchen cabinets and the trim in the kitchen is an awful french-vanilla color. We thought going with a complimentary gray with some blue in it would make them look whiter, but it just made them look even yellower, duh. So we went with the vanilla color - walls, trim, ceiling, everything is painted the same color in a flat finish. It works surprisingly well! I guess it just kind of makes it "go away".

I love the look of the same color being used for walls and trim. I'd use semi-gloss for the trim, but the look is much more unifying -- typically a good choice.

Ok, but if any switches or outlets get painted, that's a deal breaker!

no no, paint the switch plates too lol

That bedroom was my favorite in the all the best contest!
I love the look - it makes a very traditional space more modern and unified. also makes the space feel larger without it being broken up everywhere by contrasting trim.

Several months ago, Martha Stewart Living had a photo of one of the bazillion rooms in one of her bazillion houses where the trim and wall were painted the same color, and it looked gorgeous. She said she does it to reduce the transition from inside to outside - it's less jarring than a bright white frame. I never thought about it that way before, but it makes sense. AB's use of the same color but a different finish is brilliant. Love it.

This is a great post.

I have admired many rooms that have everything painted the same color, and never realized that is what I liked so much about them...

That bedroom is stunning . . . . all those windows really compliment the lovely dark color.

I think it would work well if you have good color selection, a consistent design theme, and aren't prone to clutter. Otherwise, it will tend to look dinghy and you'd lose the effect of having the trim at all.

I like it - it helps make walls look higher

If I had a home with lots of trim an mouldings and wanted to make the space appear updated and more modern - This would be the way to do it.

Wowie wow. That bedroom is astounding. What an amazing place to wake up.

i love the walls, trim, switch plates all being the same color. doors, too! we live in a small space, so by painting it all the same color - everything drops into the background and it seems to open it up.

just about to start painting our cape house, and will do the same thing again!

Having lived many years in rentals where white paint was on everything - walls and trim both - and vowing I'd never live in a white room again, I now find myself struggling with the issue of painting the trim and walls the same colour. The trim in our current home is unique - it's quarter round trim that fits inside the plaster edges, so everything's flush (unlike normal trim that fits on top of the drywall/plaster and spans the joint where the wall meets the window/door, and hides a myriad of builder's sins, I might add). The quarter round trim inset into plaster can look quite sleek and deco when the craftsmanship is superb. Unfortunately, our house was built at the tail end of WWII, and sadly it would appear all the skilled craftsman had already been drafted (plus, 64 years of hard living, things are going to get dinged up).

As a result, where the plaster meets the trim are lots of ragged, chipped out bits which look very sloppy, which is highlighted when there is contrast between the wall and trim colours. We've tried all kinds of ways to repair it, but the fix either buries the seam at the trim edge, so it's difficult to paint the trim evenly, or it just makes the plaster sit proud of the trim, which is also unsightly. There just is no way to make a smooth, straight line with plaster!

We considered ripping out all the quarter round and installing trim that would cover over the ragged edges of the plaster, but alas, several doorways abut right into the corner of a wall, so that type of trim would have to be scribed to fit evenly and would be lopsided (the normal 2-3" width on one side but
Because of this issue, I decided to paint the kitchen walls the same cream colour as all the trim throughout the house, which makes the trim and walls seem like one unit - with all the curves of the quarter round, it is very deco and chic, and the raggedy line of the plaster edges has been disguised. However, I just can't stand the idea of painting the whole house cream to minimize the chippy plaster.

I'm wondering if, in the other rooms where the walls have colour (bathroom is robin's egg, the rest of the house is a pale gold), would it look too weird to paint the door or window trim the same colour as the walls, but leave the actual doors, windows and baseboards in the cream trim colour? I'd love to hear some opinions on this.

Gorgeous.