Most Popular Rooms for High Gloss Paint in 2025

In the past, a high gloss finish was reserved for a few spaces and walls were almost always expected to be matte. But today, many designers and homeowners are breaking free from the norm and incorporating high gloss paint throughout their homes in locations that would have once been deemed unconventional. To give your interior a trendy and timeless feel, our Shoreline High Gloss team has carefully curated a list of popular color palettes and rooms for high gloss paint in 2025.

When To Use High Gloss Paint Over Other Sheens

While high gloss paint works in many areas of the home, there are several factors you need to consider that influence whether you should use gloss paint or other sheens like a matte or eggshell finish. Before making your decision, weigh light quality, style, the condition of the surface and how you prepare it, along with the amount of traffic the area will experience.

Surface Condition and Preparation

A reflective paint job is excellent for highlighting features of rooms where it’s applied, but its shiny finish can be a double-edged sword if there are imperfections in the surface it’s on. Due to how much light it reflects, it will make areas with bumps or divots cast noticeable shadows.

An ideal wall for high gloss paint would have no imperfections. It must be smooth and dry and free of dust or debris. We can make a surface suitable by preparing it properly. Our team can fill in any holes or cracks, sanding and priming them. This extra prep work is worth it to achieve a flawless finish.

Alternatively, you can save some preparation time and choose a sheen like matte or eggshell, which isn’t as shiny and will hide the flaws instead of highlighting them.

Light and Reflection

The high reflectivity that characterizes high-gloss paint means that you must think about how much natural and artificial light is in that room. Consider the ambience you want to achieve, whether bright and colorful or more subtle and subdued.

Light is enhanced by a glossy sheen, making rooms bright, airy and look larger. However, too much light makes the effect too powerful, creating glare and causing eye discomfort. When you’ve balanced your light sources correctly, a high gloss sheen will add a mirror-like look to the walls. This can make colors vibrant and bright to give the room an energetic and contemporary feel.

If you have enough light in the room, or simply want a more understated look, eggshell or matte finishes will give the room a warm, velvety glow.

Traffic and Usage

The decision to use gloss paint should also be based on how much traffic the area will get. Glossy sheens are durable and easy to clean thanks to their water- and dust-resistant formulation and smooth finish. These sheens work great in high-traffic places that can get dirty easily, such as doors, kitchen cabinets, bathroom walls and trim in high-usage places.

Consider whether the benefits of reflective paints outweigh the drawbacks of highlighting imperfections. Think about whether places that are unlikely to get much attention, like ceilings, formal living rooms, basements or laundry rooms, are worth the preparation. A more subtle, aesthetically pleasing, matte finish that hides defects is a more practical option for these places.

Style and Aesthetics

Are you going for more of a modern or traditional style for your overall design? The sheen you choose is vital for complementing your style. High gloss is associated with modern styles such as Hollywood Regency, which is extravagant and glamorous, but still feels modern with its clean lines and mirror-like polish.

This polished and clean look is great for offsetting the understated, simple look of a minimalist style with a splash of brightness that stimulates the wandering eye.

If you’re aiming for a traditional look, you’ll want something with less reflectivity. Matte is non-reflective, absorbing light instead of bouncing it back. However, if you want a sheen, but below gloss, an eggshell finish will provide high-traffic durability and strike a balance between subtle and reflective.

Where to Use High Gloss Paint

High gloss paint on walls gives your home’s interior a sleek and polished look and offers architectural trims and molding a luxe appearance. Your interior will radiate warmth and sophistication. Although glossy paints are both trendy and timeless, they do need an expert touch in application. Our Shoreline High Gloss team will consult with you to select the perfect color palette for your home and then provide high-end, fine-finish paint to enhance your space.

We highlight eight ideal areas for professional high-gloss interior paint applications.

1. High-Traffic Areas

Certain parts of homes experience more traffic than others and, as a result, face a higher rate of wear and tear. Fortunately, high gloss paint is highly durable and easy to clean with a microfiber cloth, water and a few drops of dish soap. Popular high-traffic areas that look attractive with indoor gloss paint include:

• Wet rooms: Kitchens and bathrooms are constantly exposed to dirt, oil and high humidity. Over time, this causes colors to fade, makes it impossible to remove stains, causes white surfaces to look dirty and results in cracks in your drywall and wooden features. By incorporating high gloss paint into your walls, ceilings and other precious features, you can maintain the beautiful appearance of these rooms.
• Mudrooms and entryways: Give guests and yourself something dazzling to step into with high gloss finish entrances. Mudrooms and foyers are among the more high-traffic areas of your home. Choosing a high gloss paint for these spaces ensures the result will withstand the test of time — and countless visitors.
• Children’s rooms: Children sometimes get messy during carefree playtime — no area is off limits, and that can mean sticky handprints all over their tables, dressers and walls. Fortunately, a high gloss finish can be applied to make sticky prints less pronounced, and with a quick wipe with a microfiber cloth and water, the area will look as attractive as always. A bonus is that high gloss paints offer vivid colors and shine that kids adore.

2. Doors and House Shutters

Doors and house shutters are regions that are also exposed to a bustle of activity. Shutters and doors are handled, bumped and even slammed through daily use and by elements like the wind. Naturally, these fixtures have a limited lifespan. You can enhance their working life by using durable, glossy paint.

Whether they’re outdoor or indoor, these features can get protection against the elements with a sophisticated flair thanks to a high gloss paint application. The appearance of high gloss works exceptionally well when applied to a front door and shutter in the same color.

3. Most Furniture

Furniture receives a lot of contact with people, food, dirt and oil. If you have any pieces you wish to preserve for years to come while improving their appearance, high gloss paint for furniture may just be what’s needed. High gloss looks beautiful on a series of furniture with similar colors, like side tables and bookshelves. Creating a consistency of color and high gloss on your furniture allows you to see the light interacting with the room.

4. Walls

Traditionally, homeowners and interior designers have opted for matte finishes on walls. High gloss lacquer paint for walls is a modern take, giving your home a more updated, unconventional and fresh look that will impress your visitors.

Light refracts on high gloss walls, giving it a shiny finish and a sense of movement and energy in your interior. This sense of motion alone can effectively improve the mood of your room, regardless of color. High gloss paint on walls doesn’t have to be tied to living rooms and bedrooms. It can be applied anywhere, like hallways, laundry rooms and even garages. High gloss paint is also an excellent choice for an accent wall, which can help make your chosen room stand out with a luxurious look and feel.

5. Ceilings

A high gloss finished ceiling can give a small and cluttered room a more spacious appearance. By reflecting light, indoor gloss paint creates a sense of depth and enhances the overall brightness of a room. Your family or residents may feel more at ease with the space having an open and upward look.

High gloss paint on ceilings with a deviating color can also provide a striking contrast from the rest of the room, creating a dramatic atmosphere.

6. Moldings

Moldings may not be the most prominent feature in a room, but they are noticeable. Moldings in a room are like a frame to a photo. A good, sleek picture frame can highlight the contents of an image, so let your moldings do the same for your room.

Painting high gloss onto the moldings can contribute a sense of elegance while protecting the feature from aging. High gloss moldings go exceptionally well when the color of the molding matches a set trim color established in a room.

7. Wooden Features

High gloss finished wood is something to behold. The natural visual texture of the wood pairs beautifully with the smooth, glassy appearance of high gloss. When applied with the right high gloss color, the wood’s color can appear more vibrant, almost as if the wood is still part of a living tree.

High gloss finished wood can give any room character while protecting it from moisture. Select high gloss paint for features like interior shiplap or wood paneling on feature walls.

8. Any Room With Good Lighting

We cannot say it enough — high gloss painted rooms look stunning when the light strikes them. So, if you’re uncertain where to apply it, think about where you get the best or most elaborate lighting in your home.

A chandelier paired with a high gloss painted ceiling makes the fixture feel like it has doubled in size and in the light it emits. A room with excellent natural light would also make for a fantastic environment to implement high gloss. The light coming from outside will bounce around any high gloss painted features, providing a visual of the light moving throughout the room.

Color Palettes of the Year

High gloss paints have a transformative effect, sprucing up your home’s interior with color and sheen. Our Shoreline High Gloss team has carefully selected and curated colors of the year that we believe will enhance your space and set the tone and mood you want in your room. Although these colors offer proven popularity, we do recommend that you consider our color consult services — a close collaboration will allow us to apply the latest trends in a way that suits your space.

The most popular palettes focus on modernizing homes while adding warmth and ambience.

Light Trends

Neutral shades offer an elegant and contemporary look to your home’s interior — beiges, buttercreams and light shades radiate tranquility and warmth. Pale shades of blue, green and gray are ideal for respite rooms like living rooms and bedrooms, and a trend we expect to flourish in seasons to come.

Soft blush pinks are also among the current trends. These soft pinks combine well with bolder pops of rich magentas and are the perfect accents to deep blues or light neutral tones.

Balance, serenity and nature are still central elements we see with lighter high gloss trends. Expect more palettes of pale browns, soft greens and nature-inspired hues in homes in the coming year and beyond.

Dark Trends

Many homeowners are still drawn to rich blues, giving spaces vitality while still being inviting and intriguing. These deep blues work well in well-lit bathrooms or living spaces and combine exceptionally with neutral accents and finishes.

Shades of brown appear in homes, which is another trend gaining much popularity. Chocolate high gloss finishes give homes a luxurious and opulent feel, and browns are the new go-to for homeowners who traditionally gravitated toward black, charcoal and dark blue colors. The rich tones pair nicely with warm, glossy whites and pops of bold colors.

Dark colors and jewel tones like sapphire and garnet are popular but need a professional eye to prevent the bold statement from becoming heavy and oppressive. Our team can help you make a statement with trendy, rich forest greens, bold browns or deep jewel tones while keeping the intensity just right.

Contact Shoreline High Gloss for High Gloss Paint Services

High gloss paint is durable and can elevate any room’s appearance. If you’re confident that you know where to use high gloss paint, you need to be careful how you approach applying it. When applying a high gloss finish, any impurities found on the surface can become more visible.

Not everyone is aware of specific processes that need to be followed before painting the finish. These specialized processes mean you must be careful who you trust to paint high gloss on your precious home.

At Shoreline High Gloss, you can trust we will perform a quality job. We are one of eight painters in the world with a Master Certification in Fine Paints of Europe specializing in high-end gloss finishes. We’re industry leaders in our field and would love to help you realize your high-gloss vision for your Palm Beach, Florida, or Manhattan home. View our gallery of work and contact us today to schedule a consultation.