Trim Mistakes and Making them Right

After last week’s guest bathroom reveal, I had hoped to be able to reveal the adjacent guest bedroom today. On Thursday, Justin finished the final element of the bedroom (the wooden plank to sit on top of the half wall) and that should have been that.

Key words are “should have been.” Only once the board was in place, I realized that I needed to repaint all the trim work in the room.

Let me back up. I am not normally a white wall kind of person; I tend to prefer color on the walls. That being said, I knew pretty early on that I wanted the basement bedroom walls to be white. Even with the addition of a window, the room never gets direct light and even at the brightest point in the day, it’s still rather dim. I wanted the walls to be light and loved the warm white look of Sherwin Williams Alabaster, which I had previously used as a trim color throughout our last home.

Since this is a guest room and not a main space in our home, I also wanted to use it as an opportunity try out a new trend I’ve been loving: contrast trim! I wanted a subtle contrasting look and initially chose a color that was just a few shades darker than Alabaster. I tested out the two colors next to each other throughout the room and I was satisfied with the contrast.

The problem was, I tested out both colors on the wall, since we didn’t have our trim in yet. And the contrast color (Sherwin Williams Dot to Dot) didn’t look the same on trim as it did on the wall. Rookie mistake!

I was really disappointed in the way the trim looked throughout the room. In some places, like next to the built-in linen cabinet, it looked closer to the way I envisioned, although still not quite as much contrast as I had hoped for.

In other places, like the trim shown below, it looked too similar to the color of the wall.

It just depended on how the light hit it, but it didn’t really matter if the light was on or off or what time of day it was. Bottom line: the majority of the room didn’t look like I wanted. I really reaaaaallllyy didn’t want to have to repaint all the trim, so I hoped I would get used to it and live with it. I also hoped that maybe once the stained shelf board went in on the top wall, it would help bring in a little definition and not make the room look so plain.

Unfortunately, putting in the shelf board only confirmed how much I hated the color of the trim. I decided not to try to live with it, but to go ahead and repaint it a color I actually liked. We’ve already worked so hard and spend so much time, money, and energy getting this far – why have a disappointing end result?

I didn’t waste any time. I chose Sherwin Williams Repose Gray (tinted at 75% to make it a little lighter) and got to work yesterday. I already love it so much more. I’ve only done some of the trim so far, but I’m so so happy with how it’s looking. Definitely worth spending a little more time and energy making it right.

Here’s where we were before:

And here’s a sneak peek of how the trim looks now:

I still didn’t want a super bold color, but I needed something with more contrast than before and this was the perfect choice. Instead of feeling “meh” about the trim, now I’m SO excited to finish and reveal the room, which tells me that this was the right decision.

Have a great weekend! I know what I’ll be doing . . . painting. And I’m actually excited about it now. 🙂