Choosing Paint for Your Home: Sheen, Product and Colour

Sheen levels, room by room

Sheen is how much light the dried paint reflects. More sheen is easier to wipe clean but shows every bump and patch in the wall. Less sheen hides imperfections but marks more easily. Selecting the sheen per room is about balancing cleanability, light reflection and surface durability. A common approach:

• Ceilings (flat or matt): diffuses sunlight and downlight reflections, concealing plasterboard joins and keeping the room feeling open.
• Living areas and bedrooms (low sheen acrylic): a soft, contemporary finish that resists daily scuffing and wipes down with a damp cloth.
• Kitchens, bathrooms and laundries (semi-gloss or a mould-resistant low sheen): made to withstand humidity, steam and frequent cleaning.
• Doors, window frames and skirtings (water-based satin or semi-gloss enamel): cures hard to resist chips, vacuum knocks and hand marks.

Sheen names and gloss levels vary between manufacturers, so compare the product itself rather than the word on the tin.

Interior and exterior paints are not interchangeable

Interior paints are made to be washable and low in odour indoors. Exterior paints carry UV resistance and the flexibility to cope with sun, rain and temperature swings, which an interior product does not. Within each group the product is then matched to the surface:

• Exterior acrylic and membrane paints: formulated with UV blockers and elastic polymers that bridge minor micro-cracks in render and masonry as they heat and cool.
• Mould and mildew inhibiting finishes: important for shaded southern walls, eaves, wet areas and anywhere moisture collects.
• Stain-blocking primers: seal water stains, timber tannins, raw plaster and dark existing colours so they do not bleed through.
• Enamels: a harder finish for doors, trims and metalwork that take knocks.

Primer and undercoat are part of the choice too. A good finish coat over the wrong primer can still fail.

Low-VOC and low-odour paints

VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are what you smell while paint dries. The major Australian manufacturers now make low-VOC interior paints, which give off far less odour and matter most in bedrooms, nurseries and homes where people stay during the work.

If odour is a concern, ask which products on your quote are low-VOC, and for which rooms.

Sample colours before you commit

Colours look different on a wall than on a card. Light direction, time of day and the surfaces around them all change how a paint reads. Before committing:

• Paint sample patches large enough to judge, on more than one wall.
• Look at them in morning, afternoon and evening light, and under your own lights at night.
• Check them against fixed features that are staying, such as flooring, benchtops, tiles and cabinetry.
• Sample in the sheen you plan to use, because sheen changes how a colour reads.
• Moving from a dark colour to a light one usually needs a high-opacity, stain-blocking undercoat to stop the old colour ghosting through.

Durability: matching the paint to how the room is used

Some rooms and surfaces work much harder than others. Choosing for durability means thinking about:

• Hallways, stairwells and children’s rooms, where a scrubbable finish saves repainting scuffed walls.
• Wet areas, where mould resistance matters more than the sheen.
• Cold, south-facing walls and uninsulated corners, where condensation can encourage black mould unless an anti-mould primer is used.
• Western Sydney’s swings from summer heatwaves to damp winter mornings, which move timber frames and plaster joints, so flexible gap sealants at those joints help the finish hold.

Our quotes name the paint system and the number of coats for each area, so you can see exactly what you are comparing.