What Color to Make Base Molding?

It is enough that you figured from the ceilings and the wall paint, balanced the dark hallway with the lighting living room and coordinated the kitchen shade with the blue cabinets. Now all those baseboards remain. Molding which disguises the meet-up of floors and walls can be unobtrusive or a defining design element, depending on the way you treat it. Matching paint, a comparison, default, glossy or apartment — each choice changes the appearance of a room.

Classic White

You’re fairly safe painting the baseboards white, and certainly so when the door and window frames and crown molding are white. White or off-white baseboards mirror historical tradition and push the wall shade ahead; the sunflower yellow of Thomas Jefferson’s insides, and the blue of the antiques-filled living room appears framed and finished with white trim. In a light pink or lilac bedroom, white trim is as intimate as a lace-trimmed valentine. A charcoal living room with white baseboards is stunning with modern or African decoration. In a beach house, pure, clean white on baseboards reflects the natural lighting as easily as a bleached shell on the mud. White base molding is a great default which does not have to be dreary.

Color Punctuation

Painter’s tape is the friend for all baseboard painting projects, especially when the trim contrasts sharply with the wall colour. Utilize a “frame” of vibrant molding to emphasize architectural details, set off an interesting lighter wall shade, or bring some bounce to your room which has high energy — a playroom, nursery or kitchen. Tangerine trim with defrost walls is energetic in a kid’s bedroom. Apple-green baseboards at a light apricot kitchen tip in Tuscan decor. Any intensity of gray edging white walls is clean and modern. A darker shade of the wall colour — red baseboards with blush walls, or teal trim against turquoise — adds elaborate harmony. Cream walls with colonial shade trim — barn red, mustard, blueish gray — improve period furnishings.

Mad for Monochrome

Simply take the lazy way out and concentrate on a daring wall color at the same time. When you paint the baseboards the exact same shade as the walls, then you create a single seamless stretch of wall and spotlight the decorated shade. This visually pushes back the walls — without a defined border they appear to be receding. It is a bit more modern than conventional white or ecru trim, plus it contrasts the wall shade directly having a marquee floor — like slate pavers or painted tile — or with an important carpet. You appear quite design-forward, and you also do less prep, clean-up and taping. Combining monochrome walls and base moldings is a decor strategy worth weighing for any range of great reasons.

Finishing Touches

Whatever color you choose for the baseboards, do not neglect to utilize the very best finish paint as well. In earlier times high-traffic areas and also the inevitability of scuffs from chairs or sneakers in floor level meant high-gloss paint which could wipe down easily. No more. Now’s paint store provides washable paints at each finish, from matte to super-shiny, so that you can balance the gleam with the colour and get the room just right. Use a little water and soap on the scuffs, smudges or marks, and the baseboards will continue to appear as if you just painted them.

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