Homes Designs: To paint or not to paint?

Lee-Anne from Toronto wrote us looking for help: "I love your website and thought you might be able to help me with my design dilemma. We recently bought a home that was built in the 40’s that’s a bit of a fixer upper. It has wooden baseboards throughout and lots of wood trim. I am still hanging onto my old furniture but I am sooooo ready to redo this room!! I want to modernise it and add colour and texture!! My dilemma is that in almost all of the design pictures that I see, the baseboards are painted white. My sister has told me in no uncertain terms that I am NOT to paint the wood trim in the house. I am looking for inspiration where people have kept the baseboards a natural colour." Below are some photos Lee-Anne included of her home.

At first I immediately thought "PAINT!!" but if I had such beautiful baseboards and trim, I would be terrified to paint it. So after looking at the photos, I would listen to your sister. But I would get out the paint can for a few things. I would paint out the fireplace (and lose that huge mirror above), the risers on the stairs and maybe the balusters (a photo below shows this). That's it. But keep your walls light and if you were going to get rugs, I'd keep those light too. Or you could go with a warm bright wall colour (see the yellow wall below). So the following are photos of spaces with unpainted trim (except the last one but imagine it's a dark wood).