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Where Artistry Begins
The roman clay look in fine Italian lime, soft, matt and gently mottled, for bedrooms, chimney breasts and old walls that will never be flat.
Clay plaster in Liverpool usually means one thing. A soft, matt, faintly mottled wall in a quiet colour, the look sold as roman clay. Zavoré supplies and installs the fine Italian lime plasters that give that look and suit British houses better than true clay does. We are based in Birmingham, and our own team travels to Liverpool for the work.
If you have a photo saved on your phone, send it. We will tell you whether it is a lime plaster, a lime paint or something else entirely, and a sample board will settle the colour.
Liverpool is full of Victorian and Edwardian terraces with bay windows, chimney breasts, alcoves and long hallways. They are the places where a flat emulsion has always looked lifeless. A matt mineral wall with colour that drifts from one shade to another gives those rooms a calm depth that paint cannot.
The walls themselves are often far from flat, and a clay look finish is forgiving of that in a way a polished one never is. It goes on in two thin coats, the second worked while the first is open, so each pass softens into the last. That makes it a sound choice over old lime walls that will never be truly flat.
A word on the name. Roman clay is an American shelf name covering everything from real clay to thickened paint. We do not sell actual clay plaster. We supply intonachino, a fine lime with a light grain, and stucco suede, which is smoother and reads like brushed fabric as the light moves. Lime hardens as it carbonates, takes a wipe and can be patched, where unstabilised clay softens under a wet cloth. It is breathable too, which matters on a solid wall that needs to let moisture move.
Damp is the thing to deal with first. The wall will tell on you within a year if it is not fixed.
Bedrooms and quiet sitting rooms are the natural home for it. The colour is tinted through the plaster rather than coated, so you see two or three shades of the same colour depending on where you stand and where the lamp is. Earth tones, bone, clay pink, olive and warm stone do the most with it.
It is not for showers, bath splashbacks or the wall directly behind a hob, where grease finds the texture and stays in it. In a hallway with a dog and a pushchair we would fit it, but seal the lower part of the wall and say beforehand that the sheen will differ slightly there. More detail is on our clay plaster finishes page.
The survey comes first. We look at the substrate, flatness, damp, movement and how the room is used, and we say plainly if a wall needs stripping back or fixing before anything goes on. Photos can answer a lot before anyone travels.
You then choose from the colours on the plaster, and the material is tinted to the approved sample before it leaves Birmingham. We tint from an NCS or fan deck reference, so a second order matches the first. The skill in laying it is mostly leaving it alone. Fussing burnishes patches and leaves shiny islands in a matt wall, and the line where wall meets ceiling needs a steady hand.
Liverpool is away from our base, so a whole house is planned in blocks of days with the team staying on site. Dates are agreed once the sample and price are signed off. The process is set out on the clay plaster installation page.
This is the friendliest of our finishes to lay yourself. There is no burnishing to get wrong, and the material is patient. What catches people out is scale and edges, holding the mottle consistent across a big wall and cutting a clean line at the ceiling. If you would rather hand the room over, we can lay it.
The shop sells both plasters, primer, and lime paint if your reference photo is really a chalky colour washed wall, with tracked delivery across the UK. Decorators can ask about a trade account.
If your reference is brushed and chalky, limewash in Liverpool is less work. If you want visible stone grain, see marmorino in Liverpool, and for a mirror finish polished plaster in Liverpool. For bathrooms look at tadelakt in Liverpool or microcement in Liverpool. A harder, greyer look is concrete effect plaster in Liverpool, and a shimmer is liquid metal in Liverpool. The rest of what we install is under decorative specialists in Liverpool, and the area guide covers Venetian plastering in Liverpool.
Roughly, but neither term is precise. What both mean to the eye is a soft matt mineral wall, and in Italy that is made with lime, which is what we supply.
No. We supply Italian lime plasters, intonachino and stucco suede, because they give the same look and live better in a British house. Lime hardens, takes a wipe and can be patched.
Yes, it is forgiving of an uneven surface in a way a polished finish is not. We check the wall at the survey, and say plainly if it needs stripping, repairing or a damp problem sorting first.
On general bathroom walls, a sealed lime finish copes with steam and the odd splash. In the shower itself, or behind a basin tap, we use tadelakt instead, which is made to live under water.
Call 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or email sales@zavore.co.uk with the photo you keep coming back to and the postcode. Order a sample board and live with it on the wall for a week before you order the room.
Order a sample board tinted to your colour, or send photos and rough measurements of the walls in Liverpool and we will come back to you with the right finish and a clear quote.
For a quote, email photos and measurements of your walls to sales@zavore.co.uk or call 07592 929191, Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm.
See every area we cover.
We also supply the trade by post, wherever you are. The shop ships tracked across the UK, and the Academy teaches the finishes in Birmingham.
Providing luxury finishes for the most prestigious addresses in the world
Venetian plaster, limewash, microcement, tadelakt, metallics, sculptural plaster and gold leaf, supplied and installed by our own team, with Venetian plaster taught at our Birmingham studio.
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