Lime-based Venetian plaster for villas and renovations across the province of Málaga. Lime putty and marble dust, spread in ultra-thin layers and burnished until the pores close: what reflects the light is the compressed surface itself. Here is how it is done and how to judge it, which is what you need in order to ask for three quotes and know which one compares with which.
Still deciding between finishes? The light in the room decides more than the catalogue, and it is worth looking at before you choose.
Worth knowing before you ask for a quote, because very different things are sold under this name, and the price explains everything except that.
That is the recipe, and it is an old one. Slaked lime matured in a pit, loaded with marble dust in different grades: the fine gives the sheen, the coarse gives the depth. Nothing else goes in. Everything that gets added — resins, plasticisers — takes it further away from what you are paying for.
It is spread by trowel in layers so thin that together they barely add up to a millimetre and a half. There are several, and each one goes on when the one before is at just the right point: not too fresh, or it drags; not too dry, or it will not grip. That point is judged by touch, not by looking at the clock.
At the end the surface is gone over with a clean trowel, held at a steep angle and pressed hard. The pressure compresses the lime and the marble until the pores close, and that is where the sheen comes from: it is the surface itself reflecting, not a coat of varnish put on top. That is why a Venetian plaster shines with depth and an imitation shines flat.
Lime sets by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and slowly turning back into limestone. It is slow and it does not stop: the wall in its fifth year is harder than in its first. It is the difference between a material that cures and one that simply dries.
And they are nothing alike in price or in the way they age. If you ask for three quotes you will get both, mixed together, without any of them telling you which is which. Knowing how to tell them apart is the difference between comparing and choosing blind.
This is the one the name belongs to. Mineral, breathable and naturally alkaline, which puts mould off without the need for any additive. It can be waxed or soaped at the end to seal it further. It costs more in material and quite a lot more in hours, because burnishing cannot be hurried.
An acrylic paste with filler that is sold as Venetian plaster and applied in a similar way. It is not a fraud in itself: in good hands it looks good, it is cheaper and it stands up to rubbing better. What it does not do is cure or breathe, and its sheen comes from the resin, so it ages like a plastic and not like a stone.
To the touch, lime feels cold and stony; acrylic is at room temperature and slides a little under your hand. Against the light, lime has an uneven, cloudy sheen — you can just make out the passes of the trowel — whereas the synthetic gives back a flatter, more uniform light. And in the quote: if one offer for the “same” finish is double the other, it is almost certainly not the same finish. Ask straight out: it can be answered in one sentence.
Neither of them is wrong. What is wrong is paying for one in the belief that it is the other.
The reflection runs across the wall and traces whatever is underneath: a ridge that nobody would see under matt paint is picked out in the light here for good. And once burnished, it cannot be corrected; it has to be redone completely. That is why getting the wall flat matters as much in this finish as the plaster itself, and why a quote that does not even mention it is keeping quiet about half the job.
In this finish the applicator IS the finish: the same material in two different pairs of hands gives two different walls. A sample made by someone else, or brought along from a previous job, does not tell you what you are going to get. Ask for it to be made by whoever is going to do the job, and on your wall.
It is a rigid material bonded to the surface beneath, so it copies whatever that surface does. On a newly built partition wall that has yet to settle, or on a crack whose cause nobody has looked into, the crack will end up appearing in the plaster. First the movement is dealt with; then the wall is decorated.
Yes, and it is one of the first things to decide. It ranges from a silky matt to a mirror finish, and what controls it is how long the burnishing goes on and whether it is waxed or soaped at the end. It is best decided with the sample in front of you rather than in words: “satin” means very different things depending on who says it, and the more sheen, the more it demands of the wall underneath.
Lime plaster copes well, better than people assume: it is alkaline, and that puts mould off. Sealed with wax or soap, it repels splashes of water. What is not advisable is putting it where the shower spray hits it directly every day, or on the shower tray. A wall behind the washbasin, or the mirror wall, is its natural territory.
That is exactly where it looks its best, because a ceiling catches the light from the side and the sheen moves across it as you move. It is also where it takes longest: the work is done with arms raised and the burnishing loses force, so more passes are needed to reach the same point. We tell you beforehand, because it shows in the quote.
The wall is redone from corner to corner, not patched. And there is a specific difficulty here: a wall that is some years old no longer has the same tone as the original sample, because the lime has kept on carbonating and the surroundings have done their part. Matching that is the real work, and it is best done by whoever applied it. Keep a note of who did it and with what material.
Almost always for two reasons, and you can ask about both straight out. One, whether the material is lime or acrylic under the same name. Two, how many layers go into it: the same applicator can do three or five, and the difference in depth is visible to the naked eye. If an offer does not state either the material or the number of layers, it is not that it is cheaper: it is that nobody knows what it is.
Yes, but running a roller over it is not enough. If it has been waxed, the wax has to come off first, because no paint grips on it; then comes a primer made for sealed, low-absorbency surfaces, and only then the paint. It takes a long afternoon rather than a little while, and what is covered up does not come back.
Show us the wall and tell us what time of day the light falls on it. With that we can tell you how much sheen that wall can take and what state it is in to begin with. And if we go ahead, the sample is made right there: with the material that will go on and by the hand that will apply it.