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Reply to: I'm painting my house on alabaster by sherwin williams. I need a trim that goes well with it! There's a trick to creating harmonious color schemes out of just whites and off-whites. Two rules: 1. You can not use two whites that are too close together in terms of hue family. 2. However, the two colors of white can't be too far apart in terms of hue family either. Which means you have to first correctly identify what hue family a color of white belongs to. This is where people get stuck. This is why I'm always insisting that the whole "undertones" thing is not just unfortunate, it's wrong. And this is a good opportunity to demonstrate why and how that is so if you're interested. First, we have to acknowledge that the number of whites from Sherwin-Williams is limited so the pool of not too close yet not too far apart colors of white to choose from to go with Alabaster is going to be small. Next issue is Alabaster belongs to the yellow hue family. It's smack dab in the middle of the yellow hue family. Which means most of the SW whites that look "just white" are not options because they also belong to the yellow hue family and they are too close to Alabaster. For example, SW 7005 Pure White is not a good option with Alabaster because each makes the other look gray and dirty - the result of being too close in hue angle and too close in chroma. (see color wheel) SW 7007 Ceiling Bright White, on the other hand, is too far away from Alabaster. so the color harmony is off and clumsy - it's too green in comparison. Yes, it's green-yellow, not blue. All that means your best choices for a white trim color with Alabaster walls are High Reflective White or Extra White. HRW is the more neutral, or most "just white" looking of the two and will look brighter and crisper. Extra White next to Alabaster will have less contrast and have a softer look.

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