Don’t paint that trim!
an ode to stained wood
I stopped by a networking event at the Tippecanoe Place yesterday. For those who are not familiar, this is HUGE mansion built in the 1880’s in South Bend, IN. Today, it houses a restaurant, brewery, event space, and catering business (maybe more). I only had a few minutes to stay at the event, and for a good portion of that time, I was ogling the extensive, intricate, stained trim and woodwork. For those of you who know me or have followed along, you may know I have this thing for wood. It checks all the boxes! Warmth, texture, connection to nature. It grounds a space, and gives an old world charm and coziness. It can be a feature, an accent, or a perfect backdrop. What’s not to like?
Well, apparently, a lot :-D
The original wood trim has been painted over in So. Many. Homes. I actually made this mistake in our first condo, and I don’t like to talk about it ;-). Now I know better, so I do better.
When we were house hunting back in late 2017, houses were selling within 1-2 days in our area. There was one house that had been on the market for over 6 months. We asked for a showing anyway, and initially we were turned down because the owners wanted to make some cosmetic changes and then re-list. I begged to let us see it first, because I really liked the bones of the house, and I wanted to control any cosmetic updates myself!
Long story short we ended up buying the house as it was. One of the updates they had planned was to paint the wood trim. Virtually every other house that we saw for sale had painted trim. I'm so glad we bought our house before they took that step. Call me old fashioned, but I adore our wood trim. In our house in particular, it's like having built-in picture frames around every wall and window, and ties the whole house together.
Periodically I scroll through Zillow, daydreaming about other parts of town that we could potentially move to. However, if the house has painted trim, that’s an immediate red flag for me. You can’t just paint over trim like walls to get back to the original stained wood, so think long and hard before you paint that trim. I might not buy your house if you do ;-D
If you have wood trim you hate and you’re like “But Rachel, I hate it.” Let’s talk - set up a free initial call with me, and we’ll see if I can talk you into saving your trim!
~Rachel
