Whether you’ve just completed a home renovation or are planning an affordable upgrade with a fresh coat of paint, the types of paint finishes you choose play an important role in both appearance and durability. In this article, we will explain the best paint finishes for every room to maximize performance and colour.
Why are there different types of paint finishes?
Paint companies produce a wide range of paint finishes for different applications throughout your home. Choosing the right paint relies on several factors, including the following:
Surfaces
“Surfaces” refer to the trim, walls, ceilings, doors, cabinets, floors, etc. in your home. The paint you choose needs to withstand the traffic in the room, the function in the space, and the frequency and type of cleaning required.
Materials
Paints require specific compositions to adhere to different materials such as wood, drywall, concrete, plastic, etc. While choosing the right type of primer helps improve adherence, you still want a paint designed for the material in question.
Function and Traffic
Combined with the material and surface type, the function of the space and the amount of traffic in the area are also important. Finishes vary in how well they hide flaws, show fingerprints, or become scuffed or chipped. Choosing the right finish improves performance and durability while also making cleanup easier.
Moisture
Moisture levels also impact paint performance. Choosing the wrong paint in areas such as bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms can lead to issues such as peeling, bubbling, and mould growth.
Interior and Exterior Surfaces
Finally, interior and exterior surfaces require different compositions. Although not exactly a finish, it’s important to keep in mind that exterior paint requires special chemicals to create a waterproof surface. These chemicals produce slow-releasing VOCs (volatile organic compounds), which evaporate safely outdoors. However, when applied indoors, the VOCs can cause health issues as they continue to evaporate over a longer period of time, thus negatively impacting indoor air quality.
The Types of Paint Finishes
There are five basic types of paint finishes:
1. Flat or matte
- Appearance: No sheen whatsoever, allowing the colour to appear more saturated as the surface absorbs light.
- Durability: Although it hides flaws, it also marks easily compared to higher gloss finishes.
- Application: No shine means you can often get away with minimum coats.
- Maintenance: This finish is the hardest to clean and requires a soft touch to avoid removing the paint or causing shiny streaks or a chalky appearance.
2. Eggshell
- Appearance: Has a slight sheen compared to flat paint to help capture the light.
- Durability: A stronger finish than flat paint.
- Application: Very forgiving to reduce the number of coats.
- Maintenance: Easier to clean than matte, but not as low maintenance as higher-gloss paints.
3. Satin
- Appearance: Satin paint creates a smooth, barely noticeable sheen often called a pearl finish.
- Durability: Highly resistant to wear.
- Application: The satin/pearl finish makes it easier to spot flaws such as brush strokes or uneven areas, so it often requires more coats and careful application.
- Maintenance: Easy to clean, including marks, non-permanent kids’ colouring markers like crayons, and scuffs.
4. Semi-gloss
- Appearance: A noticeable sheen that captures light for an elegant, high-end look.
- Durability: Semi-gloss finishes dry to a hardened, shiny surface that can also be water-resistant depending on the brand.
- Application: A light reflection makes it almost impossible to get a streak-free, even sheen or hide wall flaws.
- Maintenance: Very easy to clean and stands up to some scrubbing.
5. High-gloss
- Appearance: This is the ultimate shine, with a mirror-like ability to reflect light, but that also shows every bump and flaw.
- Durability: The surface dries to a hard finish that is resistant to marking.
- Application: The most difficult to apply due to the high sheen that catches every flaw and reflects light from varied angles that can make some areas look less glossy than others.
- Maintenance: Easily wipes clean and also withstands scrubbing.
The Best Type of Paint Finish for Each Room
Choosing the right paint finish does not just impact appearance, but also how well the paint holds up to daily life. Here are the best uses for each paint finish:
- Flat/matte: Bedrooms, ceilings, family/living rooms, and lower-use rooms like offices or guest rooms.
- Eggshell: Kids’ rooms, hallways, and family rooms.
- Satin: Moist rooms such as bathrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens, and some basements.
- Semi-gloss: High-traffic areas, kitchens, bathrooms, and trim throughout the home, as well as design features like wainscoting where you want contrast with the upper walls.
- High-gloss: Trim, moulding, cabinets, doors, high-use surfaces, and furniture.
Satin vs Matte
People often confuse satin and matte finishes, as they are similar in their appearance. However, while you can use satin finishes in almost any room thanks to their moisture resistance, you can’t use matte finishes in rooms where moisture is an issue. This is because matte paints are more porous and will trap moisture, leading to mould and mildew growth. As well, because bathrooms are exposed to more rigorous cleaning, the scrubbing and harsher cleaning products will damage the finish.
Matte vs. Eggshell Finish
Another consideration is future touch-ups and repairs. With a matte finish, if the wall gets a small dent, mark, or damaged area in the future, that specific section can usually be patched and repainted with much less noticeable variation. With an eggshell finish, localized touch-ups are generally more visible because of the sheen, so in many cases the entire wall needs to be repainted from corner to corner to achieve a consistent finish.
Paint Finish and Colour Appearance
The finish you choose impacts how paint colours appear. First, matte and flat paints tend to match the colour swatch found in home improvement and paint stores, as most swatches use matte finishes. However, when you choose a higher gloss, you might be surprised by how different the colour looks when it captures the light or is applied to an imperfect surface.
A lack of sheen creates more consistency, as it does not reflect light and therefore is not affected by imperfections. Eggshell and satin are known for their warmer feel compared to their flatter counterparts. Semi-gloss and high-gloss paints can appear more intense, especially for darker colours. However, they are notorious for creating glare or dark shadows cast from every bump and imperfection depending on the light.
Common Issues When Choosing Paint Finishes
Here’s where many homeowners go wrong when DIYing their paint jobs:
- Not considering maintenance: Never use matte finishes in high-traffic areas or where there’s a risk for messes. Matte paints are not designed to stand up to rigorous or frequent cleaning, so you need to choose a higher sheen paint for spaces such as kids’ rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens.
- Wall damage: When you apply glossy paint to surfaces with noticeable damage and flaws, it draws attention to every imperfection. Light casts shadows and creates glare on high-gloss surfaces, creating an uneven finish.
- Moisture damage: Applying finishes without moisture resistance in areas such as bathrooms will lead to mould and mildew growth as well as peeling, bubbling, and discolouration.
- Choosing low-quality paints: High-quality paints require fewer coats, offer purer colours, and tend to produce less noticeable odours.
The solution: Working with experienced drywall installers and painters avoids common mishaps that ruin your fresh paint job. While it might seem DIY painting is the most cost-effective solution, poor-quality paint jobs waste paint and cost more money in the end.
Contact the Experts at Ontario Drywall And Taping
Ontario Drywall And Taping (ODT) offers end-to-end drywall and professional painting solutions to perfect your upgrades and renovations for homes in Toronto, Vaughan, Mississauga, and throughout the GTA. For more information about paint finishes or our expert services, you can call us at 647-878-4466 or contact us here.
