Colour, sheen and finish

What the different paint sheen levels actually do

Sheen is not a style preference on its own — it changes how forgiving a wall is, how easy it is to wipe clean, and how much light bounces off every bump in the plaster. Getting it backwards causes more complaints than the colour choice itself.

Sample panels painted in matt, eggshell and satin sheen side by side under a window

Reading the sheen scale from flat to gloss

Dead flat matt sits at one end, hiding plaster imperfections but marking easily. Move through soft sheen and eggshell and each step up adds a little more reflectance, a little more wipeability, and a little more honesty about what is underneath. Full gloss sits at the far end and shows every ripple in old timber.

Flat matt: best on ceilings and low-traffic walls with rough plaster
Eggshell: the common middle ground for woodwork and busy walls
Satin and gloss: wipeable, but unforgiving of surface flaws

Where a low sheen becomes a problem

A dead flat finish in a hallway or a child's bedroom marks the first time a shoulder brushes it, and scrubbing a flat matt often burnishes a shiny patch that is worse than the mark it replaced. Sheen has to be chosen for what happens to that wall day to day, not just how the colour swatch looks pinned to it.

Matching sheen to the room's actual use

A quiet spare room can carry a soft matt for years without complaint. A boot room, a stair wall or a rented kitchen cannot. We ask what happens in a room before we agree a sheen, because the paint tin does not know whether three teenagers and a dog live there.

Traffic level and who uses the space
Whether the wall will be cleaned or just dusted
Existing light levels, natural and artificial

How we work on this

We ask about room use before recommending a sheen, not after
We test sheen on the actual wall in daylight and lamp light before committing
We match sheen between adjoining surfaces so joints do not flash

Questions we are asked about this

Is eggshell always the safest choice for walls?

It is a sensible default for busier rooms, but not universal. A quiet, well-lit room with good plaster can carry a flatter finish comfortably, and eggshell everywhere can look flat and characterless in a period house.

Can I mix sheen levels in one room?

Yes, and it is often the right answer — a flatter wall finish with a satin skirting and eggshell door gives contrast and durability where each is actually needed.