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Where Artistry Begins
Lime plaster worked to read as honed travertine, with open pores and a faint horizontal bedding. Zavoré is based in Birmingham and our artisans lay it in Exeter.
Exeter's own stone is red, which makes a pale, honed, pitted wall all the more striking indoors, and travertino in Exeter gives exactly that. Travertino is lime plaster worked to look like cut travertine, with open pores and a faint horizontal bedding, tinted to your colour and laid by our artisans. We are based in Birmingham, where our Academy is. Start by ordering a board, then send photos of the wall.
Victorian and Georgian terraces here have narrow halls and stairwells where a stone wall makes sense. A pale, lightly pitted finish gives a Heavitree or St Leonard's hallway the feel of a cool stone entrance without the weight of slabs, and no lintel or support is needed.
Chimney breasts and fireplace surrounds are natural homes, as are columns, curved walls and alcoves, where real slabs would have to be cut and mitred and plaster simply follows the shape. Cloakroom and basin walls work too, sealed, with no grout line for mould to sit in.
Newer flats around the Quay and the university campus often have a flat, white feature wall by the entrance. In a restaurant, hotel or shop interior, a lit travertino wall gives a calm, honest presence.
Real travertine is laid down in layers around mineral springs, and what anyone recognises is the holes, which run in bands along the bedding. Travertino copies both. The pitting is made deliberately in the wet material, and the banding comes from working the trowel horizontally. Underneath it is still lime and marble.
We are not going to tell you it is stone. A cut slab has depth in the material itself, which plaster does not. What plaster does better is shape and weight. It goes round curves, needs no substructure, can be repaired when damaged, and can run seamless through a whole room, or be taped into courses with a fine recessed line between blocks so a hall reads as masonry.
A hob is the wrong neighbour, since grease sinks into open pores, and tadelakt is the right choice inside a shower. Our travertino page explains the finish in full.
Choose a board from the sample board at the pitting level you like and stand it against your floor in daylight, because this finish is read by shadow. Then send photos and measurements, and we survey before pricing, looking at the wall, its flatness, cracks and damp. A primer goes on first so the wall drinks evenly.
The real skill is keeping the pattern consistent. Pitting has a rhythm, and carrying it along a long wall, or finding it again the next morning, is why those walls take two people. Our Venetian plaster installation page covers how we lay lime finishes, travertino included.
Exeter is some way from Birmingham, so a larger job is booked in blocks of days with the team on site throughout. Dates are agreed once the sample and price are signed off. Where a wall will meet hands or splashes we seal it, which closes the surface without filling the texture, or use natural wax for more warmth.
Light across the surface throws a shadow into every pore, so a slot of light at the top, an uplighter or a window running alongside makes the wall read from across the room. Light straight from a central ceiling fitting flattens it. Pale colours need that wash of light more than dark ones.
Travertino is a good finish to learn, and our training page lists courses in Birmingham, London and Manchester. See also our wider decorative work.
Travertino sits well with the rest of our range. For a deeper, carved stone wall see sculptural plaster in Exeter and bas relief in Exeter, and for painted walls murals in Exeter. Bathrooms and splashbacks may call for mosaics in Exeter. A band of leaf is the job of gilding in Exeter, a glossy contrast comes from lacquered walls in Exeter, and the ceiling line from cornice and coving in Exeter. Real rockwork for gardens is artificial rock in Exeter. Our decorative finishes specialist in Exeter page gathers all of this, and Venetian plastering in Exeter covers the wider family of lime walls.
No. It is lime plaster worked to read as travertine, with the pores and the bedding put in by hand. It weighs almost nothing and needs no fixings.
Around a basin or on cloakroom walls, yes, once sealed. For the shower enclosure itself we would suggest tadelakt.
Open pores hold dust and grease, which a wipe does not remove, so we seal walls that meet hands, splashes or steam. A wall nobody touches can stay bare.
Yes. How open it looks is a decision made with the trowel, so agree the level on a board before the wall is started.
Ring 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or email sales@zavore.co.uk with photos, rough measurements and the postcode. The sample board is the right first step, laid beside the wall you have in mind.
Order a sample board tinted to your colour, or send photos and rough measurements of the walls in Exeter 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.
Our main services: Venetian plaster installation, limewash installation, every decorative installation, Venetian plastering courses, the limewash course and our decorative finishes.
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, London and Manchester.
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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