Training, taught
from the wall.
Hands-on Venetian plastering courses in Birmingham for tradespeople, decorators and complete beginners. Small groups, real material, and a finish you take home.
You will spend most of the day with a trowel in your hand.
There is no way to learn this from a video. The material has a working window measured in minutes, the pressure on the trowel changes everything, and the difference between a good wall and a bad one is in your wrist. So we teach it the only way it works: in front of a real board, with the same materials we use on paid jobs, correcting you as you go.
Groups are deliberately small. You get the demonstration, then you do it, then you do it again until it is right.
From bare board to burnished wall.
- Materials
- What lime plaster actually is, how the systems differ, and how to read a technical data sheet without guessing.
- Preparation
- Substrates, primers, and how to tell whether a wall is ready. The stage that decides everything above it.
- Tools
- Trowel types, edges, how to break in a new trowel and why a scratched one will ruin a wall.
- Base coat
- Loading, laying off, and keeping a wet edge across a full board without stopping.
- Finish coats
- Thin coats, direction changes, and building movement and depth deliberately rather than by accident.
- Burnishing
- Timing, angle and pressure — the part that separates a shine from a smear.
- Sealing
- Wax, soap and sealer. What each does, where each belongs, and how to apply them without clouding the finish.
- Pricing the work
- How to measure, what to allow for, and how to quote decorative plaster so you do not lose money on your first job.
Trades, decorators, and people starting from nothing.
About half of every group are decorators and plasterers adding a high-value finish to what they already sell. The rest have never held a trowel. Both work, because the course is built around doing rather than listening, and nobody moves on until their board is right.
- Painters and decorators adding a premium service
- Plasterers moving into decorative work
- Complete beginners and career changers
- Developers and designers who want to specify it properly
Asked often. Answered honestly.
Do I need any experience?
What do I need to bring?
How much is it and when are the next dates?
Do I get a certificate?
Can you train my team on our own site?
Ring the studio for the next available dates.
Tell us your experience level and what you want to be able to do, and we will tell you which session to come on.