01 — Architectural Finishes
Venetian & Polished Plaster
Our signature specialty. Venetian Plaster, Polished Plaster, Marmorino and Stucco finishes, built up in careful layers and hand-burnished to create depth, luminosity and a silken texture no synthetic finish can replicate.
hand-applied and burnished, not a textured paint
with custom pigment matching
and showrooms
— no VOCs, no off-gassing
A Venetian plaster is lime and marble dust, laid on in coats of a fraction of a millimetre and compressed with a steel trowel until the surface closes and takes a polish. There is no way to speed that up. A wall is worked wet, in sections, by one pair of hands from one edge to the next — which is why the set-out of the breaks matters as much as the material, and why we agree them with the designer before we start rather than leaving them wherever the day ended.
The finish moves with the light. A burnished Marmorino reads flat and stone-like at midday and shows its depth at a raking angle in the afternoon. That is the point of specifying it, and it is also why nobody should approve one from a photograph. We make sample boards on site, at the size the finish will actually be seen at, in the light it will be seen in.
It is a slow trade with a small number of people in Melbourne who can do it properly at commercial scale. On a full-height commercial interior the set-out has to be resolved before the first drum is opened: where the breaks fall, how the scaffold is staged, and which junctions the eye already expects a transition at.
Specification
| Systems | Venetian plaster · Marmorino · Travertino · Microcement · Limewash |
| Finish range | Matte through to high-burnish polish |
| Substrates | Set plasterboard, render, blockwork, concrete, joinery, curved surfaces |
| Colour | Pigment-matched to any NCS, RAL or Pantone reference |
| Programme | 2–6 weeks depending on area and access |
| Indicative rate | $150–$300 / m² |
| Warranty | 10-year workmanship |
Finish coats only, excluding substrate preparation and access.
Questions
How is Venetian plaster different from a textured paint finish?
A textured paint sits on the surface as a film. Venetian plaster is lime and marble dust built up in coats and compressed until it closes — the depth is in the material. It is also breathable, which matters on solid substrates and in heritage work.
Can it go in a bathroom or a commercial kitchen?
Microcement and sealed lime systems can. Standard Venetian in a shower recess cannot without a specified topcoat. Tell us the exposure at design stage and we will specify the right system rather than the closest one.
How do we sign off a colour?
On site, on a board at least A2, in the actual light. We make two or three variants and leave them up for a day. Digital renders and supplier chips are not adequate for a burnished finish.
What happens if it is damaged later?
It repairs, but the repair has to be blended by hand into the surrounding surface. We keep the colour formula and batch record for every job so a touch-up years later starts from the right material.