Should My Trim Be Light Or Dark?
Redesigning your home can be a stressful event—and so can choosing your trim. Once that choice is made, though, the pressure doesn’t stop there. What color should it be? Should you paint it? Should you go neutral or is dark what’s right for you?
These are no small questions when knowing that the wrong decision can ruin the desired effect of the trim on your home. Too dark in the wrong room, and you’ll make it feel constricting. Too much light in the wrong room can also have negative effects, clashing with the décor. Using our years of experience, The Moulding Company walks you through how to make that decision.
Light trim
Going with lighter trim colors can be perfect for classic or traditional homes, particularly ones with strong architectural features you want to highlight and add elegance to. White is often the go-to color for lighter trim, and it is often seen as the universally acceptable choice for trim no matter what style of room or home you have. If you have dark walls, light trim can make the room feel lighter and bring some cheer into it while making your windows and doorways pop with brightness. If you have a lighter room and want to use light trim to go with it, white trim can still add that pop of brightness without invading the space.
Same-colored trim
If your home is contemporary and you want an open, airy feel to your room, choosing a trim color that is the same color or tinted similarly as your walls can help you achieve that effect. It’s important to remember to keep the tints the same feel and tone as your walls, so if you have warm-colored walls, warmer tints will complement it. Cold-colored walls should be accompanied by cool trim in the same shade or cool tints of the same color. Making the trim the same color as the walls—or very close to it—helps bring the room together and give it a smooth flow that’s almost seamless.
Dark trim
Dark trim has become a trend only recently. Using dark colors for your trim used to be considered distasteful, but lately, we’ve come to appreciate the contrast this bold decision offers your home. Dark or even black trim can be a powerful accent statement to lighter, neutral wall colors, providing contrast that adds a sense of depth and sleek power to a room. If you don’t want to paint your trim black, you can opt to go for the same color as your walls but a few shades darker, or you can go with a more traditional look by staining your trim with different finishes. Dark trim works best in a room that is open to some darker accents, like modern homes, and provides a close, intimate feel.
Color carefully
The color you choose for your trim can dictate the feel of your entire room. If you pick a black trim in a room that is very centered on light colors and wide windows—and you want to keep it that way—it could pull the attention away from your light accents as well as give the room a darker feel that you might not have intended. If you’re trying to go for a unique, deep, or even mysterious look, light trim won’t help you with that, but dark trim will. White is the safety fallback, pretty much always guaranteed to look okay, but it won’t offer a unique or special touch to your home if it doesn’t match your personality. If you aren’t sure what look you’re going for or what trim color you want, talk to an expert who can help you decide, so you end up with the perfect room. Let The Moulding Company help you pick your color.