Welcome to our first blog post of 2020! We hope that you enjoyed the holiday season.
If you have been following along with our new blog, you know we’ve been talking a lot about analyzing rooms, textures, light sources, and more to help with picking the best paint color. This week we are going to be diving into picking out a sheen for your paint.
Paint sheens come in a few different options. High-gloss, semi-gloss, satin, eggshell, matte and flat. The sheen of paint that you pick out is going to depend on what kind of room you are painting and what you need the paint to do. A good rule of thumb to remember is “the higher the sheen, the higher the shine.” The higher the shine, the easier it is to clean.
High-gloss and semi-gloss paint will be the most durable and easiest to clean. These sheens are also very shiny and light-reflecting. High gloss is so shiny that it’s not usually recommended for interior walls but more so for doors, trim, etc. We recommend a high-gloss sheen to really get that WOW-factor on a front door or possibly even all interior doors, depending on your preference. Semi-gloss is a very common sheen for your standard trim package for the interior of your home. A satin sheen is another very common trim sheen, but it is slightly duller than semi-gloss. Satin is still easily cleaned, and you will find that most factory finished cabinets come in a satin finish. We always encourage homeowners to use high quality trim paints such as the Benajmin Moore Advance Line.
(These cabinets were painted with a satin sheen)
Eggshell (sometimes called satin for wall sheens) and Matte are both sheens in between Satin and flat. They provide a little bit of a shine and are both easily cleaned. The most common choice for homeowners and the sheen that we typically use for walls, is Eggshell. Eggshell is a clean, warm finish that may show some wall imperfections if the walls are not prepared properly. If you have older walls with some imperfections, a matte finish may be your best solution. Due to the that it reflects less light, it shows less imperfections. This is also a great wall paint if you are trying to dull the light in the room as well. Another great thing about matte is its ability to touch up.
(In this picture, the walls have been finished with an eggshell sheen, ceilings are flat, and the doors have been done in semi-gloss)
Lastly on the list of sheens is flat. This sheen provides the most coverage for imperfections but does not provide any shine and is difficult to clean. We use a flat sheen on ceilings.
Thank you for reading, stay tuned for our next blog post! Feel free to comment any questions/comments/suggestions.
Phone: (1) 855-PAINT-11
E-Mail: admin@granitestatepainters.com
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