Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
stephaniebilladeau

How to make Off-white creamy trim work for a fresh bright airy theme?

Steffen Billy
2 years ago

Hi Houzzers. My dilemma is one I’ve found discussion on but no real resolution. Hoping I can. We have about 2600 sq ft of house to repaint. It’s a beautiful home but the color isn’t what I want. The entire house is full of gorgeous baseboards and crown moulding and some wainscoting throughout - all the same peaky color - Navajo White PPG which pulls a yellow tone. The color they have on the walls work but it’s not for us. I want to lighten it all up and go with a greige or grey (I know, so basic. Save the grey is out comments please!) but am struggling to find how to make it work with the trim as is because painting it all will be - well - a mega PITA!!!! Has ANYONE found a way to incorporate an off white baseboard that Sometimes pulls yellow with a greige or grey wall color? Or am I just SOL and need to paint trim too. Color below shows the mantle/ fake fireplace which is the color I’m hoping to keep and get something to match to. I pained the Accessible Grey to the left of the mantle today and am just not sure I’m sold, so would love comments on that too.

Comments (21)

  • Mary Elizabeth
    2 years ago

    Hopefully @Jennifer Hogan will chime in and do a color analysis of your trim color. It will be interesting to see what she has to say.

  • Yvonne Martin
    2 years ago

    With the color of your wood floors I think that any grey that pulls blue is a mistake.

  • Mary Elizabeth
    2 years ago

    I agree with Yvonne, that the Accessible Gray is reading blue. Try Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Gray. It's a "warmer" greige. I've used in throughout my house in rooms that face every direction. My trim color is Benjamin Moore Vapor, also a "creamy white".

  • loobab
    2 years ago

    Congratulations on your new home!

    The accessible grey color to the left of your fireplace is most definitely a "cool" color, and the baseboards and fireplace mantle Navajo White are very yellowish and a "warm" color and do not play well together at all.

    Do you actually like the Navajo White color ? Or do you just want to avoid the work and $ of having to repaint them?

    If you like the Navajo White, then I suggest painting the walls in a warm white and forget the greys altogether.

    If you want a grey or a cool white, forget the Navajo white, bite the bullet, and repaint the trim and mantel. There is no point in painting the whole house around a trim color you didn't really, really love in the first place but felt you were stuck with.

    In Benjamin Moore:

    Cool whites with a hint of grey are White Heron, Decorator's White,

    Neutral whites (my favorites) are Chantilly Lace, Oxford White and Super White.

    Warm whites are. Simply White, Linen White, White Dove, and your Navajo White (which can read rather yellow in some light)

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    2 years ago
    last modified: 2 years ago

    Paint the TRIM. For heavens sake...................please don't twist. Just paint it. Bite the bullet because all attempts at paint , otther than a warm tone you don't want. will simply disappoint.

    Lots of things are a PITA to get the result you want.

  • Jennifer Hogan
    2 years ago

    @Mary Elizabeth Thank you for the vote of confidence. I do want to clarify that I am not a professional, I love color and play with color comparisons mostly as a hobby.


    I also want to empower others. This is not something that you have not done almost every day of your life since you were a teenager. We pick outfits that go together, we pick makeup that goes with our skin tones, we pick hair color and jewelry. But somehow we get scared when we pick house colors and we forget how we do it every other time we pick color.


    The other big difference is when we pick an outfit it only covers a few square feet, so we may not notice that a white has a little pink or gray or yellow in it as much as we notice when it is covering 400 sf of wall space.



  • PRO
    Patricia Colwell Consulting
    2 years ago

    IMO paint the trim it will drive all the choices you make if you leave it as it is. You already know this .

  • Anna Devane
    2 years ago

    It seems as though you want a wall color that doesn’t coordinate with the current floor and trim color. i think you need to step back and rethink what needs to be done to get you where you want to be. Even if it means doing work you don’t want do, otherwise it will never look right.

  • Steffen Billy
    Original Author
    2 years ago

    Thanks for all the feedback thus far. It’s mostly the “avoid the work, don’t wanna spend the money” to redo the trim. I’ve gotten a quote of $7000 to redo it all and frankly that’s just not a cost I’m sure I’m willing to settle with.

    I think I’m going to give edgecomb grey a go and see how the warmer grey works with the trim

  • Steffen Billy
    Original Author
    2 years ago

    Also to add if there’s any colors you DO suggest to go with the trim, I’m all ears!

  • Jennifer Hogan
    2 years ago

    @Stephanie Billadeau - I won't tell you that gray is wrong or that beige or taupe or greige is right. The truth is that there is no perfect neutral that works for everyone.


    I started my color journey about 20 years ago when I had a color dilemma that I couldn't solve on my own. I found a mentor that helped me find the right colors. I was also working in the mental health field while I was looking for colors for my house and became fascinated with the impact of color on our mood.


    Since you have not begun painting your home I would like to ask you to take a step back before making any color decisions. I may also be saving you several decades in getting your home perfect for you.


    What I have learned over the past 20 years. There are colors that bring us joy. There is a connection between happy memories and the colors we associate with those memories. Seeing those colors actually raises the amount of dopamine in our system and makes us feel happier.

    (When we are depressed and dopamine is reduced we see less color - everything is less colorful and we say we feel blue, but we are actually feeling gray).


    For most women these colors that bring us joy are the same colors that look good on us.


    My sisters and I are all over 60. By this time in our lives we have figured all this out and each of our homes is decorated with colors we love (Colors that complement our skin tones, eye color and hair color). We have also figured out our style. I have not studied furniture style vs personality type, but there seems to be a pretty strong connection. I can look at the homes that my siblings live in and understand why they chose the colors and furniture styles. It fits their personality.


    Without going through my entire large family I will give you just a couple of examples.


    I am a winter, dark eyes, dark hair, fair skin- burns, does not tan. I am also a manager of a team of data analysts who analyze data quality. By nature I am an introvert - too many people exhausts me. I like numbers and colors and animals and nature. I look good in clear, bright colors, especially reds and purples. My closet is filled with large patterns or solids or a solid shirt with a large flower or animal graphic. It should not be surprising that I am drawn to MCM furnishings, clean lines, solid colors, not a lot of patterns or anything overly busy and the prominent accent colors are teal, purple and red. The neutral that I picked for my home is taupe - gray with a bit of beige that leans purple and my white is a very clean white.


    My sister made her living studying consumer insights. Very outgoing, quick wit, extrovert, charismatic. Extravert - People energize her. She is a fall - medium brown hair, brown eyes and an olive skin tone that tans easily, never burns. She picks clothing with much smaller, busier patterns than I do and has a lot of muted colors that make me look sick. Her home is an eclectic mix of Antique Queen Anne furnishings and industrial pieces. Her accent colors are greens, golds, orange reds. Her neutral is Moss - a gray beige with a green undertone.


    My sister-in-law is blond haired, fair skinned with blue eyes. She was a stay at home mom until her kids were grown and now works at a jewelry store. She is a mild extravert - likes people, but doesn't feed off of their energy like my sister. Her home is decorated with country style, oak furnishings. She has cornflower blue and peach as her accent colors and cream as her neutral with a creamy white.


    Being one of 6 kids and being married to a man who was one of 7 kids I have had the opportunity to look at dozens of homes belonging to people who I know intimately and see how their styles and colors are influenced by their coloring and their personality.


    I think when we are young we are strongly influenced by current trends and what is popular rather than look inward at who we are and what we love.


    Can I ask what colors make your heart sing / bring you joy?

    Do those colors - the one's you want to incorporate into your color scheme work beautifully with gray? Do you wear a lot of gray? Do they work with the trim color you have?





  • Nancy Cranmer
    2 years ago
    last modified: 2 years ago

    Bavarian Creme (Cream?) from Benjamin Moore. A beautiful damn near white but with luscious pinch of soothing cream. Goes absolutely perfect with (cherry/dk oak) stained wood. Personally, I don’t think any grey looks good with wood. Makes everything dull. But that’s just my humble opinion.

  • Jennifer Hogan
    2 years ago

    I hear you. We are all faced with this decision at some time or anther - we have to decide what must stay and what we can afford to change.


    So you have decided that the trim color must stay. It is a strongly pigmented yellow beige.

    The three numbers below represent Light, Chroma (how gray or saturated a color is) and Hue. (90=yellow)


    Your test of Agreeable Gray is slightly darker, and close in hue, but is much more gray. We see gray as blue.


    If you want the Navajo White to appear more yellow move the gray to a purple gray (lower the hue), Green will help make it appear less yellow (increase the Hue).


    LCH Chart - Chroma across the top Hue down the side all at the same level or light.

    LCH and Lighting · More Info


    If you want the Navajo White to appear more yellow move the gray to a purple gray (lower the hue), Green will help make it appear less yellow (increase the Hue).


    Typically we think of trim as being lighter than the walls, but your trim is not all that light, so to get that contrast you would need to go with a darker color. Not the light bright option you were seeking, but the deep gray green is pretty with the Navajo White.






    Another option is to go with a lighter color and stick with a more colorful white.





    Or a white that is is just not quite as colorful as Paper White but not as gray as Agreeable Gray





    I also like Navajo White with a mid tone green gray like Techno Gray.




  • Mary Elizabeth
    2 years ago

    Well @Jennifer Hogan, pro or not, you're very helpful! The last one with the Techo Gray looks beautiful in the picture!

  • Steffen Billy
    Original Author
    2 years ago

    Jennifer Hogan you are amazing and giving me exactly what I needed. I think you’re right I need to step back. I don’t mind the Navajo at all but don’t want to make the mistake picking the wrong color and next thing I know it’s a rainbow inside. So I appreciate the insights. as Mary Elizabeth said, pro or not, you are amazingly helpful. I am forever grateful!!

    With that being said - what you just posted - techno grey and shoji white are probably colors I never would have gravitated towards and I think they look splendid!
    I truthfully didn’t really consider the floor but now that someone mentioned it being a factor it does make me evaluate my desire. I really do want the modern look but understand that getting it in the house I’m in may require more cost than I’m willing to spend. And because of that I’m seeing now that I might just have to evaluate what style I’m going for

  • Steffen Billy
    Original Author
    2 years ago

    Also to add the goal is to find something that will get it to not pull as much yellow… which I see the cooler tones will not work for that

  • calidesign
    2 years ago

    Sorry, but gray isn't "fresh, light, and airy". It will also make the yellow in the trim even more apparent. I'd look at Jennifer's suggestion of going lighter on the walls, with Paper White or Shoji White. If your walls skew green, it's going to make your floors look even more red.

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    2 years ago
    last modified: 2 years ago

    Want the brutal truth? When you put FRESH paint on walls? YOU SEE EVERY SINGLE SCRATCH , MARK DING IN TRIM, which usually means you need one coat on trim in the optimal of circumstance.s An excellent interior painter would tell you same. - I know MINE would. You don't change styles, or buy into a look you don't love because of trim color because no paint is forever.

    Which means, start the piggy bank and do it right. Paint the trim : ) Sorry. It undoubtedly needs a coat.....give it two and get YOUR fresh, or wait until you can. You'll never rid the trim of "yellow" any other way.

  • Kathy Furt
    2 years ago

    Accessible beige for the wall color. Simply white SW for the trim.

  • mdefree
    2 years ago

    When you pair a creamy yellow molding color with a gray paint color, it will automatically turn your gray paint color a purple color. You can’t go gray with your molding color. You need a crisp white color.