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Where Artistry Begins
Marmorino is lime putty carrying graded marble grain rather than marble dust, laid in two coats and compressed with the trowel to a soft satin rather than a mirror. What you read on the wall is stone grain and cloud, not your own reflection. It is the most forgiving of the classic Venetian finishes and the one we use most on whole rooms. We tint it in Birmingham and lay it across the UK.
The difference between marmorino and polished plaster is the size of the marble in the tub. Grind marble to a powder and you get a material that disappears into itself and takes a shine. Leave it as a fine graded grit and you get marmorino: a surface with visible grain, a slight tooth under the hand, and a depth that comes from the aggregate catching light rather than from reflection. It is the old Venetian render, used outside on facades as much as inside on walls, which tells you something about how hard it sets. Two coats over a primed wall is the normal build, the second pressed tight and skimmed back while it is still working.
People ask us to choose for them, so here is how we do it. If you want the wall to reflect — a hallway reading like a slab of dark stone, a dining room that changes as the light moves round it — that is polished plaster. If you want the wall to look like stone that has been honed rather than polished, with grain you can see across a room and feel with a hand, that is marmorino. Marmorino is also the calmer choice at scale. A whole room in high polish can be a great deal to live with. A whole room in marmorino reads as a surface rather than an event, and it is kinder to an imperfect wall, because grain scatters light where a mirror concentrates it.
Marmorino will take a compression pass, and the further you take that pass the closer it moves towards polished plaster. Left light, it sits close to matte, with the trowel marks reading as soft cloud. Worked harder it comes up to an eggshell or satin sheen with the grain still showing through it. Waxed, it deepens and picks up a low shine without ever becoming reflective. That range is the genuinely useful thing about the material: the same tub gives you a chalky bedroom wall or a hallway with some weight to it, and the decision is made with the trowel rather than by buying something different. We agree the level on a sample board before anyone starts a room.
Marmorino has more body than a polished finish, so it will sit over a wall that is sound but not perfect and take some of the unevenness out rather than advertise it. That makes it the sensible answer in older houses, where solid brick, old lime plaster and a century of small repairs are normal. It is breathable, which matters on a solid wall with no cavity, because the wall needs to let moisture move and a lime finish lets it. It also tolerates a fraction more movement than a high polish, so it is what we reach for on timber framed buildings and anywhere a hard brittle skin would craze within a season or two.
Colour behaves differently without gloss. A polished wall darkens and deepens as it is burnished. Marmorino stays much closer to the shade you picked, and pale tones in particular stay chalky and soft rather than going glassy on you. That makes it the easier finish to specify from a reference, and the better one if you are matching joinery, a stone floor or an existing paint. It is still not a flat colour — the grain and the direction of the trowel give it cloud — but the range of movement is narrower and more predictable. Tinting happens on our machine before the tub ships, so what arrives is already your colour. Look at it in daylight before you commit.
This is the finish we use when a client wants the material everywhere rather than on one wall. It goes on faster than a polish, it will run across a ceiling, and it takes internal corners and window reveals without the drama a reflective surface causes at a change of plane. The real constraint is the wet edge. A wall has to be finished in one go, because a joint that sets before the next pass reaches it will show as a line afterwards. That decides how a room is set out and how many of us turn up. A large open plan space is a two or three person job and we plan it that way from the start.
Do not put marmorino inside a shower enclosure or a steam room. That is tadelakt’s job and no amount of wax changes it. If what you actually want is a wall that reflects, buy veneziano instead, because you will not burnish this to a mirror. And if the look you are after is flat, uniform and industrial, with no grain and no cloud in it, a concrete effect or a microcement will get you there and lime will not.
Intonachino 24kg
Fine textured lime, two coats over a primed wall, for a soft stone grain.£49.00
Primer Normal
Primer for the wall before any lime goes on, so the coats key.£10.00
Bee's Wax Paste 2kg
Wax paste to close the surface, lift the depth and add a low sheen.£20.00
Veneziano Plaster 24kg
Classic polished Venetian plaster, if you decide you want the mirror instead.£59.00
The Sample Box — Six Boards
Six boards to take home, because a grain like this needs daylight.£35.00Every 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.
Of the classic Venetian finishes this is the one to learn on. There is no burnish window to miss, the grain hides small inconsistencies, and a bad pass can usually be rescued with another. If you are a decorator adding a finish to what you offer, marmorino is a sensible first purchase, and a few days at the Academy will have you laying it properly. If it is one room in your own house and you have never held a trowel, the wet edge is what catches people out.
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 workSame family, different grind. Venetian plaster, or polished plaster, uses marble ground to a powder and is burnished until it reflects. Marmorino keeps a coarser graded marble, so it finishes with visible grain and a satin sheen at most. Marmorino is more forgiving to lay and kinder to an imperfect wall. Polished plaster has the depth and the shine.
It is water resistant, especially once waxed, and it is genuinely good in a bathroom away from the shower, because there are no grout lines and no joints for mould to grow in. Waterproof is a different word and we will not use it. Inside a shower or a steam room the honest answer is tadelakt, which is built for running water.
Usually, if the paint is sound and well stuck down. We wash the wall, make good any damage and prime it so the lime has something to key into. Where the existing paint is flaking, or it is an old oil based coating, it comes off first. On fresh plaster or new board it is simpler, and only the primer stands between you and the first coat.
It is a lime finish, which is why we suggest it for old houses rather than in spite of them. Lime moves a little with the building and lets a solid wall breathe instead of sealing it behind a film. What cracks old walls is a hard brittle skin laid over something still shifting, and marmorino sits at the softer end of the family.
Get a sample board, or the box of six, and hold them against your floor and your joinery in daylight. Once you have picked the grain and the sheen, ring 07592 929191 and we will talk about the room.
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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