Years ago we bought a house in a neighborhood of inexpensive, mostly similar and very dull boxes. The trim around almost everyone’s windows was a plain 1x4. Mos

Years ago we bought a house in a neighborhood of inexpensive, mostly similar and very dull boxes. The trim around almost everyone’s windows was a plain 1x4. Most people painted the house and trim bright contrasting colors, and they were all kind of ugly. When it was time to paint our house, we picked a soft, light green to blend in with the surrounding grassy hills. The painter was simply gobsmacked that we wanted him to paint the walls and all the window trim the same color. But to us it just made sense not to call attention to some ugly trim. Sure enough, it turned out great. Within six months, a bunch of other houses in the neighborhood had been painted similarly. Driving by there recently after having moved away a few years later, a quarter or a third of the houses have given up the “Dame Edna” look in favor of minimal or no differentiation in window trim color. The whole neighborhood looks much calmer.