Flat Paint to Eggshell: Walls After Kids
When I (Kim) left my job to stay home with our boys, I was excited to have a few months before the adoption finalized to whip our newly-purchased fixer house into better shape. Most of our rooms still had their construction-grade paint from 1985, and they were gross.
Summoning my just-enough-to-be-dangerous interior design experience, I picked a neutral-toned color palate, grabbed my brushes and rollers, and I was off! Armed with flat paint, despite the known touch-up risks.
You see, I grew up in a home that was all-semi-gloss, and it always looked tacky to me. My mom swore by it’s “wipeability,” but I decided to strike off in the opposite direction. My house would be classy looking from the get-go. I thought I would rather have to repaint a wall here or there from time to time than succumb to the dreaded “sheen.”
Enter our sons (yes twins), aged 2 1/2 at the time. Adorable little guys. So much fun. Not at all easy on walls. In the 16 months since we brought them home, they’ve returned our walls to their former look of having been neglected for years. From the “handrail? what handrail?” line of sticky prints going all the way up the stairs to the tell-tale flung-food spots all around their mini table in the kitchen, it seems systematic, the way they’ve done it.
I was once especially proud of my gray-purple powder room. Potty training “aim issues” proved to be my undoing there. After a couple of months of their “missing” and my cleaning up, the white wallboard was showing through:
Upstairs, I knew the boys would love the bright cheerfulness of their light-orange bedroom. They do. But I forgot to mention the “Never use your matchbox cars to write on the walls” rule. Thought I was covered by keeping all their crayons and markers downstairs. I wasn’t:
As I knew all along, there’s a limit to cleaning flat-painted walls. We simply have passed that limit on an accelerated time-table. And all over the house. So this summer, one by one, I will be going back and repainting all the rooms in eggshell. I’ve already started with my powder room. There will be ONE space in our home that looks like a girl lives here! Even if it does need to be (shudder) slightly shiny for practicality’s sake.
Fortunately, I DID have the good sense to paint the boys’ bathroom in eggshell (and dark blue) the first time, so that room can stay as it is. For the rest, I’ll just have to wait about 20 years to try again with my beloved flat paint.
What do you think? Have you ever thought you were done with a project only to find yourself back at the beginning? How much do kids, pets or ____ (fill in the destructive life force) play into your decorating decisions?
Comments & Conversation on this Article...
7 Responses to Flat Paint to Eggshell: Walls After Kids:
Leave a comment and join the conversation!
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
June 18th, 2008 11:43 am
With five kids, EVERYTHING I do is guided with their destructive little hearts in mind! LOL. I typically use eggshell paint - it’s wipable, but it really doesn’t look shiny. I love bold colours, though, and I’m finding that my red wall is ready for a repaint after about 18 months. Knowing me, it will probably get neglected for another year or so before I tackle it.
June 18th, 2008 1:12 pm
You are so correct Kim! We use eggshell or satin and just have to live with that dreaded “sheen”…oh well.
So nice to have a mommy’s perspective on one of these articles! Keep it up. Your post rocks. (course I am biased…)
June 18th, 2008 3:27 pm
Ha! We were JUST talking about this last night..
I use flat finish unless I’m doing some faux texturing - which of course is a totally different thing. We have five kids too (Hi Tyler!) and we realized long ago that just about nothing can endure them as advertised anyway… So we paint with the knowledge that we’ll be painting again in just a couple of years. This works for me cause I love to paint - and I can’t stand having walls the same colors for years anyway. 
HOWEVER - it HAS been supremely frustrating while we’re trying to put the whole house back together to go back to rooms that were ‘completed’ almost two years ago and find that THOSE rooms need repairs. Case in point: our boys’ bedrooms were not really affected by the hurricane - only the ceilings and light fixtures took a beating… The walls were original paint that the previous owner boasted about - Behr Kid’s Room paint. Well.. Almost three years after the storm we finally got around to looking at what needed to be done in their rooms. They were in TERRIBLE shape. Yes, the walls could be wiped — but it was the little holes in the sheetrock - the scrapes and scratches and the battered outer corners that couldn’t be helped.
As for my flat finish stubbornness — I keep a plentiful supply of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers around the house… An only slightly damp eraser and a light and patient hand can clean grime and crayon and just about anything else (even Sharpie!) from flat walls without leaving buff marks.
June 18th, 2008 10:19 pm
With two grandchildren (2 and 12) who frequently and often unexpectedly live with us, and two rescued pugs, a female who simply never quite got the finer points of housebreaking and a male who is perfectly housebroken but is an obsessive marker, we make a LOT of decisions based on them. We even have a “doggy hallway” set up as an easy to clean space for them to stay most of the time.
We’re getting ready to finally paint the girls’ rooms, and we’ll definitely be painting with satin. We just painted the stairway with satin as well, for the number of dirty handprints it gets.
June 19th, 2008 9:33 pm
Wow Tyler and Anita - I stand in awe of your 5 kids (Fred stands in fear).
Since we do hope to have a couple more, ourselves, I appreciate knowing that A) other people adjust their “chique” levels for practicality’s sake (although, Anita, I’m wavering, now that you told me about the Magic Eraser tip. You are my hero for sticking with flat!) and B) that others of you take as long as we do to re-address those spaces in the house that need our attention!
And Leslie, I’m glad you mentioned the “doggy” element. I’d like to get one of those sometime in the not-too-distant future, too, since it would be good for our boys. I’ll have to keep the paint-related expectations realistic, so I don’t get frustrated with the pooch, when the day comes.
And, Mary, since you’ve seen our walls recently, thanks for posting, too! I know you’re facing in your new house, now, what I was originally - never-been-touched disgustingness. Eww, I’d rather have my problem. ‘Cept maybe in the “toilet target” areas… THOSE I’d trade.
June 20th, 2008 6:18 pm
I have dogs. I can’t WAIT to get rid of the carpet now! The dogs puke on the carpet and stain it. They shed on the carpet, and you can see it. Give me hardwood. I can wipe puke off the hardwood!
June 21st, 2008 7:47 pm
Haha, yes we can relate, Jennifer. Our boys ruined our carpet by climbing up the bookcase and getting down a bottle of shredder oil and squirting it all over the upstairs. Sigh. So we’re right there with you on the hardwood!