A funny cute charming annoying thing has happened as I age [ahem] "gracefully": I have developed a mid-day shine on my forehead. Call it the development of combination skin commonly associated with women of a certain age, if you must. Better yet, just hand me a napkin and tell me to wipe it off.
Which is exactly what I'd like to tell homeowners who paint their ceilings in a high-gloss paint.
I can imagine how it happens. You scrape the Christmas tree across the ceiling one year, leaving a nice stripe, and then you suddenly notice scuff marks where the outdoors-only street-hockey ball hit the ceiling, and where you tried to wipe off what you thought was dust but was really an incubating insect. Then you realize you might as well paint the whole ceiling and - Hey! You just happen to have a can of leftover white paint from the trim you painted last year! How handy!
STOP! Put down that can, mister!
That paint you have in your hand has a gloss to it, because this is typically what we put on trim.
But high-gloss paint on a ceiling does the exact same thing as oil on my forehead: it accentuates every single nook and cranny, every ridge, every less-than-perfect surface. And ceilings are full of them. As is my forehead - at least in the magnifying mirror (which, in my opinion, is the cruelest gadget ever made...but I digress).
Ceilings should have matte paint. Only. That's it. What you save by not purchasing a can of matte paint you lose when a potential buyer walks in, looks up, and thinks, "Our ceiling doesn't have all those waves and stuff. Maybe they have a leak somewhere?"
Every ceiling has some imperfections, as does every complexion. No need to accentuate them, dahling.
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