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PaintDesign Dilemma
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Alabaster Walls with Pure White Celling & Trim?

Rene Montano
2 months ago

So first, let me start off by saying I am a total noob with this stuff and really have no idea what I am doing :/


We recently purchased a ranch-style home (first-time homeowner) and have settled on SW Alabaster as our wall color. Now comes the fun... I was thinking of going with Pure White as our ceiling color, but I have read some discouraging posts about it being too close to alabaster on the color wheel.


What are everyone’s thoughts on this color pairing? Also, should the trim, crown, and ceiling be the same color?


Please help!!

Comments (5)

  • dani_m08
    2 months ago
    last modified: 2 months ago

    The exterior of my house is SW Alabaster and the trim is SW Pure White. I researched white paints ad nauseum last year. I’ll look for photos I took when sampling several whites for the trim. My three sisters thought I was crazy - they couldn’t really see the difference between all of the whites 😂


    I think a lot of people use the same white for ceiling and trim (including crown) - they look just a little different due to the sheen level and you don’t have to worry about pairing two whites that don’t work well next each other.


    FYI - I am pretty sure that I selected my exterior colors + learned about the ceiling/trim from Kylie M Interiors.

  • chloebud
    2 months ago

    Not a pro but it seems Pure White could work for the trim. Alabaster’s chroma is .66 and Pure White is .44. Per Lori Sawaya here on Houzz, a chroma difference of at least .20 allows them to work together without one looking dingy/dirty.

  • PRO
    Scotts Painting & Staining Inc
    2 months ago

    Any white should work but I would recommend a plain white that is untinted or a ceiling paint such as Sherwin Williams Flat Ceiling White


    If you are in the Omaha area feel free to give us a call.


    Scott's Painting & Staining Inc

  • skmom
    2 months ago

    Hi! We just finished our custom home build about 6 months ago. I agonized over which whites for well over a year (because the house was still being built so I didn’t have rooms to sample them in, and I initially thought we’d be going with Benjamin Moore paints and had my colors picked, and then I discovered his painter uses Sherwin Williams and then I had to do it all over again, LOL!) I ended up choosing SW Alabaster as a whole house interior color, and I looked very hard at both pure white and extra white as trim colors, but in light situations with north facing low light (our house is on the north side of a hill and our best views look north, so very heavy with northern light in our home) Anyways, in that kind of lighting I felt that both pure white and extra white were too cool looking with the alabaster. I also had very bright, clean white kitchen cabinets because we went with IKEA Axstad white cabinets chosen early on in the process, and I felt the need to bridge the look of my white cabinets with alabaster walls. Can you tell the amount of agony?? LOL!

    Anyhooooooo.... what I decided to do was go for SW alabaster on the walls and the ceilings, and SW high reflective white on our trim because it looked very neutral against the alabaster and also looked the same as my kitchen cabinets. I’m super happy with the same wall color on the ceilings as the walls. The high reflective white stands out subltly with zero clashing and keeps my cabinets from standing out in the wrong way. (My floors are a natural bamboo in a bossy light brownish yellow, and most of my accent colors are in the watery blues and greens family. We live on the coast in the Pacific Northwest, so a LOT of green coming in through every window.)

    Here’s a photo I took of my dog, and one I took of my nephew’s photography above my mantle. Please don’t judge everything in the photo’s we are not finished with everything. We did most of our own interior work, and we haven’t done everything yet like cover the beams and stuff, finish touch up paint (our electrician made a huge mess, but I digress...) or even buy most of the furniture we intend to get. But you get the idea of the color on the walls and ceiling and the trim color. Hope that helps!

  • skmom
    2 months ago

    Oh! I wanted to add that I seriously thought about going with the alabaster in a shinier sheen for the trim... except for the fact that I wanted to not have my extremely white kitchen cabinets stand out like a sore thumb.

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