Venetian Plaster, Birmingham
They are two different products. Here is what separates them.
Venetian plaster paint is an emulsion with a fine filler in it, applied in one or two coats with a plastic trowel to leave a mottled, faintly stony look. It is a decorative paint, and it is sold as one.
Venetian plaster is slaked lime and ground marble, applied in five to seven thin coats and compressed until it burnishes. It is not painted onto the wall; it becomes the wall, and it carbonates back towards limestone as it ages.
Both have a proper use. The mistake is buying one while expecting the other, which is easy to do when the tub says “Venetian plaster” on the front.
Effect paint is not a con. For a rented flat, a small budget, a room you will redecorate in three years, or a first attempt at the look, it is the sensible choice and we would tell you so. What it is not is a cheap version of the same thing — it is a different thing.
Acrylic or vinyl resin, the same family as any emulsion.
Slaked lime, which sets by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air.
A few tenths of a millimetre. It sits on the surface.
One to three millimetres of built material.
Usually two, sometimes one.
Five to seven, over four to seven days.
A plastic trowel or a wide blade, often a brush for the base.
A steel trowel, worked wet and burnished as it turns.
Printed into the top surface by the tool.
Comes from layers showing through each other.
It is paint. It fades, marks and eventually needs redoing.
It hardens. A lime wall is tougher at twenty years than at one.
Easy. Repaint the wall.
Skilled. A patch has to be blended by hand into the surrounding work.
A fraction of the plaster, and you can do it yourself.
Materials are a small part of it — you are paying for days of skilled labour.
If a quotation is close to paint prices but the words say lime plaster, something in the middle is not true. Ask which system, and how many coats.
If the effect paint is the right choice for you, this is how to get the best out of it. We would rather you did it well than badly.
Do a test board first. A metre of plasterboard offcut costs almost nothing and will tell you more in an hour than any video will.
Effect paint is sold in the DIY sheds and through the brands that make it. The kits are usually sold by coverage rather than by litre — a typical bundle covers somewhere around six to eight square metres with primer included — so measure the wall before you buy, because a second kit in a different batch may not match.
Genuine lime plaster is a trade material. It comes in tubs of aged putty, tinted to a colour before dispatch, and it is sold by importers rather than by general merchants. It has a shelf life, it is heavy, and the colour has to be right first time because you cannot re-tint what is already in the tub.
The lime we use on site is supplied by Zavoré, who import Italian lime plasters and sell them to the public as well as to the trade — Marmorino, Grassello, Tadelakt, limewash, microcement and the metallics. If you want to buy the real material rather than an effect paint, that is where to start.
Buy one colour, one batch, enough for the whole room plus a little. Batch variation is the single most common reason a self-applied wall ends up patchy.
Ask for the primer and the sealer at the same time. They are part of the system, not extras, and a different brand's primer is the usual reason a first attempt goes wrong.
If you would rather be taught than guess, we run training courses in our own studio.
You are renting, the budget is tight, the room will change in a few years, or you want to try the look before committing a whole house to it.
You want it to last, the wall is a feature you will keep, the room is a bathroom or a kitchen, or the property is period and the walls need to breathe.
It is a small area with no wear on it — a chimney breast in a spare room, an alcove, the back of a shelf unit.
The wall is damp, moving, or covered in flaking paint. Fix that first. Nothing decorative survives a wall with a problem underneath it.
Send a photograph of the wall and a rough size. You will have next steps within one working day, and a sample panel made in your colour before anything is agreed.
More on polished plaster, Marmorino and Venetian plaster walls.
If you need any help, feel free to get in touch. We are happy to answer anything about finishes, timings or price.
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