Why I'll Never Paint Our Wood Trim

Ideas for wood trim paint colors and read my story of why I’ll never paint our wood trim in our 1900’s built city home.

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In my old house all of our trim is original wood and I’ll never paint it. Here’s why.

Keep the Character

First, our house was built in 1900. While we’re not sure what month, that makes our abode far older than any home I’ve ever lived in. Houses of this age are hard to come by {or nonexistent} in many cities and have unique features and characteristics that are not found in new builds. For this reason, and in all our projects, we maintain the integrity of our old house. Wood trim, quirks, plaster, and all.

Second, we’ll never paint it because it looks like this. These are various pictures in the front foyer over the years, seasons and holidays.

And this. These photos are in the dining room, which has pocket doors and a large window seat with hidden storage.

It’s in immaculate shape.

No need to fix it or re-stain it, just dust once in a while. It looks fabulous!

Is it too dark? Not so much. When you have curtains on the windows, some of the trim gets partially covered. This is not intentional, it’s just how I like to hang curtains. Against white fabric, the trim looks amazing. It has nice texture and I love texture in my home.

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Stunning? I think so. And I’m not about to change it what I love most about my house.

It’s all original.

And we love that. Not any of the previous four owners of this home {which is a small number over the span of about 120 years} had painted it and we won’t either. I love the fact that those people loved this trim as much as we do and am thankful it’s not painted. Original wood trim, let alone in this condition is hard to find in old houses.

The trim is shiny, lacks nicks, divots, holes or blemishes and it’s amazing it survived so well this long. This photo below is in the kitchen, part of which has been remodeled and has different trim, except this doorway.

It Adds Interest

I’ll also never paint it because everyone else is doing it. I see the pictures, I subscribe to the magazines and while I love modern and contemporary design, believe me I paint things white, I’m not about to paint all this. Who has time for that? I’ve got bathrooms to remodel.

I love the look of warm wood and the trim adds that to our home. Along with the floors, it ads character and interest and history to the house. Almost every visitor we have comments on how nice it looks.

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It Has Size

Our baseboards are 8 inches tall and the molding around the windows is 5 inches plus the headers. This one below is 8 inches also. You can’t readily buy this kind of trim at home improvement stores these days. You’d either have to special order it or make it yourself for lots of dough. I always see DIY projects of people making their trim and molding look bigger. I feel lucky that we have this in our home as is.

It’s Unique.

In a design world filled with white, my wood trim is the rare minority and I love that about it. It has class, it has style and most of all it has a story to tell. No paint needed to accomplish all that.