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Where Artistry Begins
Liquid metal on a wall is a polished lime plaster or pearl glaze carrying mica and metal-toned pigment, so the surface reads as brushed bronze, pewter or gold and shifts as you walk past it. It is trowelled on, not rolled, and the shine sits in the material rather than in a topcoat. We tint it to your colour in Birmingham, ship it tracked, and lay it ourselves across the UK.
Two different things get sold as liquid metal. One is cold-cast metal: real bronze or brass powder in a resin binder, sprayed on and then patinated. That is a foundry-adjacent trade and we do not supply it. The other — the one on most walls you have admired, and the one we sell — is Italian lime plaster or a pearl glaze loaded with mica and mineral pigment. Laid thin over a prepared base and burnished, the flakes lie flat and throw light back in the direction of the strokes. It is a mineral finish, machine-tinted to your colour, and it behaves like our other plasters: breathable over a lime background, touch dry in hours and hard over weeks.
The metal in a metallic plaster is mica and pearl pigment: flat mineral flakes, ground fine and carried in lime. When the trowel passes, those flakes lie down in the direction of the stroke. Light hits them all at the same angle and comes back together, which is why the wall looks bright from one side of the room and deep from the other. Change the stroke direction and you change where the light gathers. It is also why the colour underneath matters — a gold over a warm ground reads like old brass, the same gold over grey goes colder and more pewter. None of this sits on top as a varnish. It is part of the coat.
There are two ways to get metal onto a wall and they do not look the same. The first is a plaster that is already metallic: Veneziano Metallico is our polished Venetian with the shimmer through the body, Stucco Suede Metallico the softer, cloudier version of the same idea. You lay it as the finish and the depth goes all the way down. The second is a plain base, tinted the colour you want, with the metal brought over the top as a pearl or a metallic wax and burnished in. That route gives you more control: you decide how much shows, and you can leave the ground colour reading through where the pass is thin.
Metallics want light that moves. A wall near a window, or one washed by an uplighter, will do something different all day; a wall in flat, even light just looks like a shiny colour. Put it where people come at it side-on — a chimney breast, an alcove, the face of a bar or a reception desk, the wall behind a bed. One surface is almost always enough. A whole room in metallic plaster stops being a finish and starts being a fairground, and the second wall cancels the first, because nothing quiet is left for it to play against. Keep everything else matt and let the metal be the one thing working.
Metallic finishes are unforgiving about the wall behind them. Every hollow in the background reads as a dark patch and every proud edge as a bright one, so the background is made flat and primed before anything metallic goes near it. After that it is two thin coats over a primed wall, worked tight with the trowel and then burnished. The whole wall goes on in one go, by one pair of hands. Stop halfway and come back tomorrow and the join will be there forever, because the new strokes will not lie in the same direction as yesterday’s. Corners and edges get cut in as part of that same pass, never patched in afterwards.
A metallic wall is finished with wax or sealer, and the choice changes the look. Wax burnished in lifts the sheen and deepens the colour, and a metallic wax can lay a second tone over the first. Sealer is the quieter, harder-wearing answer where hands and steam reach. Day to day it wants a soft dry cloth, nothing abrasive and nothing with bleach in it. Be realistic about repairs: a scuff can often be waxed back, but a real gouge means relaying the wall corner to corner, because a patch will never pick up the stroke direction of what is around it. Keep a labelled sample board with the job for exactly that reason.
Skip metallics on long hallway walls and stairwells, where shoulders, bags and the hoover land and the sheen shows every mark. Skip them behind a hob, where heat and grease sit on the surface. Skip them in flat, even light, which kills the effect outright. And skip them anywhere you will later want an invisible repair: metallic plaster cannot be patched without the patch showing.
Veneziano Metallico 20kg
Our polished Venetian with the metal through the body — the deepest, most reflective route.£77.00
Stucco Suede Metallico 20kg
Softer, cloudier metallic movement for walls where a full mirror polish would be too loud.£82.00
Perla Gold
Gold pearl worked over a finished base when you want the metal on top.£53.00
Bee's Wax Metallica Silver 2kg
Silver metallic wax, burnished in to lift the sheen on a laid wall.£22.00
Sample Board
One board, your colour and finish, posted out before you commit a whole wall.£8.00Every tub is machine-tinted to your colour before it ships. Not sure of the colour? The colour library holds forty-eight house tints and we match any NCS or RAL reference.
If you have laid polished plaster before, a metallic is the same trowel work with less forgiveness: the flakes record every stroke you make. If you have not, this is the wrong finish to learn on — start on a matt plaster, or come to the Academy in Birmingham and learn it on a board rather than on your living room. Otherwise our own applicators lay it across the UK. Tell us about the wall and we will say honestly which way round it should go.
Learn it, or have it done
Our Academy in Birmingham teaches these finishes at the bench, beginner through advanced. Or our own applicators install across the UK from the same materials.
See the workNo. Metallic paint is pigment in a film, rolled on, and the shimmer sits in that thin skin. Metallic plaster is mineral, trowelled in coats, and the mica lies through the material itself — so it moves with the light and has depth rather than glitter. It costs more and it takes a trained hand, and it does not look like paint from a metre away.
Cold-cast metal — actual bronze or brass powder in a resin binder, sprayed and then patinated — is a separate trade and we do not supply it. What we sell reads as brushed metal in movement and light rather than as cast metal under the hand. If a client has specified genuine cast metal, tell us early and we will say so.
On walls away from direct spray, yes, sealed properly — a metallic behind a basin or a freestanding bath is a common ask. Inside a shower enclosure we would steer you to tadelakt instead, which is the finish built for standing water. Send us a photograph of the room and we will tell you which walls we would and would not do.
The material is priced by the tub — Veneziano Metallico 20kg is £77 — and a single wall rarely takes much of it. Installation we quote once we have seen the wall, because the preparation behind a metallic finish is most of the labour. Ring 07592 929191, or send photographs and measurements, and we will come back with a figure.
Order a sample board in the colour you are considering and look at it in the actual room, morning and evening, before you commit a wall. If you would rather we laid it, ring 07592 929191 and tell us what you are working with.
Authentic Venetian plaster, machine-tinted to your colour and made for each order. Materials, installation and master-led training, since 2021.
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