Paint Sheen, Room by Room
Sheen is the amount of light a paint film reflects, and it is a more consequential choice than most people expect. It changes how washable a wall is, how much of the surface underneath you can see, and how the colour itself reads. Getting it wrong is one of the more common reasons an interior repaint disappoints.
The range, briefly
Names vary between manufacturers, but the ladder runs roughly: flat or matt, low sheen, satin or eggshell, semi-gloss, then gloss. Two rules hold all the way up it.
- Higher sheen is more washable and more durable. The film is harder and less porous, so marks come off rather than soaking in.
- Higher sheen shows more. Every dent, patch, roller mark and wave in the plasterboard is picked out by reflected light. Flat paint hides a great deal; gloss hides nothing.
Almost every sheen decision is a trade between those two.
Ceilings
Flat, essentially always. Ceilings catch light at a raking angle that shows every imperfection, and they rarely need washing. A flat ceiling paint is the most forgiving product in the house.
The exception is a bathroom or laundry ceiling, where a low sheen designed for wet areas copes better with condensation.
Living areas and bedrooms
Low sheen is the standard choice and it is the right one for most walls. It is washable enough for normal life, and it still hides a reasonable amount of the wall’s history.
Flat is worth considering in a formal room or where the plasterboard is not perfect and you want it to disappear. It looks superb and it marks easily, so it suits rooms without much traffic.
Hallways, stairwells and children’s rooms
Go up a step. Low sheen at minimum, and satin is defensible in a narrow hallway that takes constant contact from bags, shoulders and bikes. You are trading some forgiveness for the ability to wipe a scuff off rather than repaint.
Kitchens
Walls take grease and steam here, so a satin or a washable low sheen formulated for kitchens is worth the money. The splashback area behind a bench needs something you can clean repeatedly without polishing a patch into the finish.
Bathrooms and laundries
Use a product made for wet areas rather than simply going up a sheen. These paints are formulated to resist moisture and mould growth, which matters more here than the reflectance number. Wellington bathrooms in older homes often have limited ventilation, and paint alone will not solve a condensation problem, though the right product copes with it far better.
If you are getting mould coming back on a bathroom wall, that is a moisture issue to deal with first. We have written separately on damp, mould and condensation before painting.
Trim, doors and joinery
Semi-gloss is the usual answer, and it is the right one. Trim gets touched constantly, so it needs to be washable, and the higher sheen sets it apart from the walls, which is what makes a room look finished.
Full gloss on skirtings and architraves is a strong look and demands excellent preparation, because it will show every flaw in the timber and every ridge in the filler. On old, much-painted Wellington joinery, semi-gloss is usually the wiser choice.
How sheen changes the colour
The same colour looks different at different sheens. Higher sheen generally reads deeper and more saturated, because more light bounces off the surface directly. If you have chosen a colour on a low sheen sample and then use it on trim at semi-gloss, expect it to look a shade stronger.
This is why trim is often specified a half-shade lighter than the walls when both are meant to read as the same colour.
A simple default
Flat on ceilings, low sheen on walls, semi-gloss on trim and doors, and a purpose-made product in bathrooms and kitchens. That scheme suits most homes and is hard to regret.
If you would like advice for your rooms, or a quote for interior house painting, get in touch.