Sheen level does three jobs: it changes how a surface looks, how durable it is, and how much it shows imperfection. Those three pull against each other, which is why there isn't one right answer for the whole house.
Here's what each finish is genuinely for, room by room.
The finishes, in order of sheen
Matt — no reflection. Absorbs light, hides surface imperfection better than anything else, and gives colour its truest depth. Least durable and hardest to clean.
Matt emulsion for walls typically has 2–5% sheen. Flat matt and dead flat go lower still and look superb on period plasterwork, but mark if you look at them wrong.
Eggshell — a low sheen, roughly 10–30% depending on the brand. The workhorse of modern decorating. Durable, wipeable, and doesn't shout. Available both as an emulsion for walls and as a trim paint for woodwork — they're different products, so check which one you're buying.
Satin — 30–50% sheen. Noticeably reflective without being glassy. Very durable. More common on woodwork than walls.
Gloss — 70%+ sheen. Hardest wearing and easiest to wipe, but shows every defect underneath and has fallen well out of fashion for interiors.
Silk — the emulsion equivalent of satin, around 20–35% sheen. Wipeable but unforgiving on anything less than a flat wall.
Room by room
Living room and bedrooms
Walls: matt emulsion. The obvious choice and the right one. Wall imperfection is more visible in these rooms than anywhere else because you spend hours in them with lamps on, and lamplight rakes across a wall at exactly the angle that shows every bump.
Matt hides that. Silk advertises it. If your walls are original plaster in a Victorian terrace, matt is not a preference — it's a necessity.
Ceilings: matt, and ideally a dedicated ceiling paint. Ceilings get raking light from every fitting in the room and show more than walls do.
Woodwork: eggshell or satin. Modern preference is eggshell. It's durable enough for skirting and architrave, and its lower sheen doesn't fight with the walls the way gloss does.
Kitchen
Walls: eggshell emulsion or a good washable matt. Kitchens produce grease and steam, and grease on true matt is more or less permanent. Washable matt emulsions have improved enormously and now give you matt appearance with genuine cleanability.
Ceiling: kitchen-specific emulsion where you can. Standard matt over a hob will discolour.
Woodwork: eggshell or satin. Higher wear, more cleaning, more moisture.
Bathroom
Walls: bathroom-specific emulsion. These contain fungicide and are formulated for humidity. Standard matt in a bathroom without decent extraction will grow mould and it will grow it fast.
Silk was the traditional answer because it wipes down, but it shows imperfection badly and does nothing about mould on its own. A proper bathroom emulsion is a better product.
Woodwork: satin or eggshell, with a moisture-resistant primer on any bare wood.
Worth saying plainly: no paint fixes a ventilation problem. If the extractor is inadequate or nobody opens the window, mould comes back regardless of what's on the wall.
Hallway, stairs and landing
Walls: washable matt or eggshell emulsion. Highest-traffic space in the house. Bags, shoulders, prams, hands on the wall going up the stairs. Standard matt will look tired within a year.
Woodwork: satin or eggshell. Spindles, handrails, newel posts and skirting all take real contact.
Children's rooms
Walls: washable matt or a scrubbable emulsion. The category where the durable-matt products earn their keep. You get the appearance of matt with a surface that survives being cleaned.
The woodwork question
Traditional British decorating meant gloss on all woodwork. Almost nobody specifies it now, for good reasons:
- Gloss shows every defect in the timber beneath. Any dent, filler edge or grain raise is highlighted.
- Oil-based gloss yellows over time, particularly in low-light rooms and behind furniture. A brilliant white gloss will be cream in four years.
- The high sheen dates a room instantly.
Eggshell is now the default for skirting, architrave and internal doors. It's forgiving, it doesn't yellow the way old oil gloss did, and it sits comfortably alongside matt walls.
Satin is the choice for higher-wear woodwork — stair spindles, handrails, bathroom and kitchen trim, doors in busy households.
Gloss still has legitimate uses: external doors and windows where maximum weather protection matters, metal railings and radiators, and genuine period restoration where the original scheme was gloss.
Water-based vs oil-based
Modern water-based trim paints have largely overtaken oil-based ones. They dry faster, smell far less, don't yellow, and clean up with water.
Oil-based still flows better and self-levels more smoothly, which shows on a panelled door under good light. It's slower, it smells, and it will yellow. Most jobs now go water-based, and for anything white it's the better answer.
The mistakes worth avoiding
Silk on an imperfect wall. The most common regret in domestic decorating. Silk reflects light, and reflected light finds every wave, every filler patch, every roller lap. On original plaster in an older property it looks worse after painting than before.
True matt in a kitchen or bathroom. Marks permanently, and in a bathroom it grows mould.
Gloss on a wall. Shows everything, and there's no aesthetic case for it in a modern interior.
Mixing sheens within one surface. Touching up matt with a leftover tin of silk leaves a visible patch forever. Keep a labelled record of what went where — the tin, the finish and the room.
Assuming "eggshell" means one thing. Eggshell emulsion for walls and eggshell trim paint for wood are different products with different binders. They aren't interchangeable and neither performs well in the other's role.
Ignoring the wall before choosing the paint. No finish rescues bad preparation. If a wall is uneven, matt hides it — it doesn't fix it. If it genuinely needs skimming, skim it.
Quick reference
| Surface | Recommended | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Living room walls | Matt emulsion | Silk |
| Bedroom walls | Matt emulsion | Silk, gloss |
| Kitchen walls | Washable matt or eggshell | True matt |
| Bathroom walls | Bathroom emulsion | Standard matt |
| Hall and stairs | Washable matt or eggshell | True matt |
| Ceilings | Matt / ceiling paint | Silk, satin |
| Internal woodwork | Eggshell | Oil-based gloss |
| High-wear woodwork | Satin | True matt |
| External woodwork | Gloss or exterior satin | Interior products |
| Radiators | Radiator enamel or satin | Standard emulsion |
Getting it specified properly
Part of quoting a job is working out what goes where — and it's a conversation worth having before the tins are bought rather than after. We cover Burnley, Padiham, Nelson, Colne, Accrington and Clitheroe, and Southport, Birkdale, Ainsdale, Churchtown and Formby.
See our decorating work, what a full house costs, or talk it through.