Hi Laura! I'm sure others here will have more experience with BM flat, but we had flat paint in our last home in San Diego for 3 years and loved it! With kids you will get smudges from time to time, but we just touched up once or twice (in those 3 years). I would never do a semi-gloss again if I could help it. The flat paint just diffuses the light or something... I don't know. ;) I just really liked the feel of it.

Edited to add: The bathroom walls in our old house were also painted flat, which goes against everything I've ever been told about paint. Not sure if that is standard practice or not though. The finish on the walls was also exceptionally smooth (no texture) and that made the paint feel like velvet. I wish I knew how they finished out those walls... it wasn't plaster, and not like any drywall I've ever seen.

This post was edited by redheadeddaughter on Sat, May 25, 13 at 1:48

I wanted egg shell, but lost that battle. We have flat on our walls and it is fine in most of the rooms, but the bathroom should've had a more durable finish. The wall is streaked with water drips which can be seen in certain light from our wet hands reaching for the hand towel. Not a good look. Even DH admits we should've used a different finish in there....maybe even a step up from egg shell.

The benefit is that flat paint can be touched up without it showing. With any gloss on the paint, any time you go over it again, it gets glossier in the areas that overlap so it will match with color, but not with sheen.

Flat also hides any wall imperfections better than a sheen where the light catches every nick or notch.

This post was edited by AnnieDeighnaugh on Sat, May 25, 13 at 9:25

Thanks! I may stick with eggshell in the bathrooms and flat everywhere else.

It was honestly something I had never considered, I have always used eggshell because I knew flat was hard to wash, however after actually going into a few houses with flat paint I realized I love the look.

It appears that there are a couple of flat paints that are supposed to be washable... I wonder if they live up to that?