Sometime this year we will likely repaint the interior of our home. It's a 16 year old home, done currently in half and quarter Tea from resene. We have mostly dark coloured or Rimu coloured furniture. We have brown coloured curtains. Darkish grey carpet.

Comments from potential painters was that tea was no longer used much, and that brighter whites were all the rage (Black White being an example).

We are concerned about going too bright as we prefer warmer/softer tones, but acknowledge our rooms are moderately dark and going lighter is probably a reasonable idea. We will likely replace our curtains later this year too, and move to lighter colours too, cream or some variant potentially.

Should we just pay the $170 for someone to come into our house and take a look?

We had a bathroom just done in Black White and it's very bright. It's not awful, just massively different from the Tea we had before. (I just went into there and it's already less jarring than it was to me yesterday so I guess to some degree you just get used to what you have).

I imagine you usually redo kitchen cabinets, and doors and trims at the same time (repaint not replace)?

Is it usual to expect that trims like window sashes get resanded and tided up before repainting?

We won't be doing this ourselves.