Do you really expect your trim to take that much more abuse than the door? If pine is hard enough for the door... wouldn't it be hard enough for the trim?

I agree that pine floors aren't for everyone since they do get marked up, dinged and dented, but pine trim not being hard enough? That's new to me. And usually pine is a good deal cheaper than oak.

We have clear pine windows, doors and trim - all stained. We distressed them all by hand. It is a softer wood, but we've been in five years and the only problem is scratches at the lever (two exit doors) since the dog knows how to open them by himself.

Our floors are #2 oak. Veranda ceilings are spruce. Cabinets are a mixture.

fwiw, we didn't go with pine because it was less (I didn't compare to anything else). It gave us the look we wanted.

Here is a link that might be useful: my house tour

I'd use pine. We, too, have clear pine trim in our old house (haven't built yet). It is more sensitive to a poorly aimed chair leg when moving furniture or a canister vac yanked crookedly through the doorway, but if you are even halfway careful with those sorts of things, you should avoid dings. If you do get a few and don't like the patina, softer wood is easier to sand and re-smoothe and re-stain. When staining soft wood like pine, be sure to use a wood conditioner first--it helps the stain take much more smoothly.

We do have red oak treads on our staircase, pine balusters, and an ash banister. Getting it all the same tone was tricky, but it blends OK. The ash was the most difficult to stain, taking three or four coats to the oak's one or two, which, in turn, took at least two to match the pine.

FYI- I had seen a White Oak floor finished with waterbased polyurethane and it looked as light as Maple flooring. The veins in the wood weren't as prominent, but the floor was very pretty and light. Some flooring companies have samples so you can see what it looks like.

If I can remember correctly, we had pine doors and pine trim in our previous house. We had the painters stain them just a touch darker than natural. You almost couldn't see any stain. It looked really nice, but I got tired of the yellow/orange like color. It seems that Oak and pine turn a little more yellow/orange if you leave it natural or don't stain it dark enough.

I like both the white or the stained look, but recently I was wondering if a whitish/linen milk wash on pine doors and trim would look nice.
I saw this pine wall at Ikea that had a linen color milk wash stain with satin poly over it and it looked stunning.
I thought that a thin stain in off white with poly would give it a lighter look (for those of us who prefer natural or ligher wood), with virtually no further upkeep, and the wood wouldn't get the yellow/orange color). I wonder how paint would look next to that type of stain...
I think I'll try to experiment with it and see if I would use it when we build our next house.

PS-I'm noticing that the green homes around here seem to be going with natural wood (no stains), including the floors and the kitchen cabinets.
In light of that, I wonder if white or stained kitchen cabinets will be phased out as the homes go green...

What is the best stain to finish pine doors to look like the oak trim I have?