Sheen is the quiet half of every paint decision. It decides whether a colour glows or glares, whether hundred-year-old plaster looks storied or simply uneven, and whether a hallway shrugs off winter coats or wears every scuff. Choosing it well, surface by surface, is one of the marks of a properly specified job — which is why every sheen on our commissions is set out in writing before we start.
Walls: flatter is kinder
Period plaster is never perfectly flat, and London’s low side-light finds every undulation. A chalky, dead-flat matt scatters that light and lets old walls look softly solid; anything shinier turns the same wall into a relief map. In principal rooms — drawing rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms — we specify the flattest finish the room’s life allows. Modern premium matts are far more washable than their ancestors, so flatness no longer means fragility.
Flat finishes hold one more quiet advantage: they touch up almost invisibly. A scuffed matt wall takes a dab from the labelled tin we leave at handover and disappears; any sheen, retouched, flashes a shiny patch that only a full repaint cures. In a family home that difference is worth more than any datasheet.
Hard-working spaces
Halls, stairs, landings and kitchens live differently: hands trail the wall, bags brush past, steam drifts from the hob. Here the specification shifts one notch — a durable or washable matt, occasionally a whisper-sheen finish — chosen so the surface wipes clean without flashing shiny patches where it is rubbed. Bathrooms follow the same logic with moisture in mind; a well-ventilated bathroom rarely needs the plasticky mid-sheens of old.
Ceilings
Ceilings take the most raking light of all and are almost always best in a true flat matt. The exception is decorative plasterwork — cornices, roses — where the ceiling white in a subtle eggshell can let the mouldings read; a small decision that repays a heritage-minded eye.
Woodwork: where sheen earns its keep
Skirting, architraves, doors and sashes are the surfaces life actually touches, and they want a tougher film — eggshell as the considered default, satin where the household is busier. We have written separately about choosing the right finish for woodwork; the short version is that gloss is tradition’s answer outside, and quietly optional inside.
Outside the front door
Exterior joinery keeps its own tradition. Front doors, railings and sash windows in Central London are overwhelmingly gloss — the finish sheds rain, takes polishing, and reads correctly against stucco and brick. A well-prepared gloss door repainted every few years is part of the street’s good manners. Modern exterior eggshells offer a quieter alternative on some elevations, but on a period façade the glossy black front door remains the default for a reason.
Consistency is the finish
Whatever is chosen, it must hold from room to room: identical sheen on every length of skirting, the same matt ceiling plane flowing through connected spaces. Mixed sheens on one surface type is the tell-tale of a patched job. Flat in raking light, crisp at every architrave, identical sheen from skirting to cornice — that consistency, more than any single product, is what reads as a finished room.
This piece is part of our complete guide to decorating a period London home.