Venetian plaster & decorative finishes, supplied, taught and installed

Traditional Venetian plaster is slaked lime putty mixed with finely ground marble, with pigment added for colour. Some modern versions use an acrylic binder instead of lime. Ours are lime based, which is why they breathe and keep hardening as they cure. Our guide to lime or acrylic Venetian plaster explains the difference.

They are one family. Polished plaster is the broad trade name, stucco veneziano is the Italian name for the high polish finish, and Marmorino is the satin, slightly grainy version. All are lime and marble, laid in thin coats and finished with a steel trowel.

Paint is a coloured film on top of the wall. Venetian plaster is a thin mineral layer built up in several coats and burnished, so it has real depth, movement and a cool, stone like feel. Venetian plaster effect paints copy the look but not the depth.

On walls and ceilings in living rooms, bedrooms, hallways and stairs, kitchens away from direct splashes, offices, hotels and restaurants. Inside a shower we recommend tadelakt or microcement instead.

Yes. We tint every tub to one of our 48 house colours or any NCS reference before it ships. See the colour library and order a sample board first, because lime dries lighter than it looks when wet.

It depends on the wall more than the finish. Preparation, area, height and the finish chosen all change the price, so we survey before we quote an installation. Materials are priced on each product in the shop, and our guide to what drives the cost of a polished plaster job explains the rest.

Yes. Our own applicators survey, tint and lay every finish across the UK from our Birmingham base. See Venetian plaster installation, or find your town on every area we cover.

At our training centres in Birmingham, London and Manchester, with Beginner, Advanced and 1 to 1 courses and all materials and tools included. See Venetian plastering training.

Completely, because we never touch it. Every payment is processed by our secure payment partners, the same PCI DSS Level 1 infrastructure used by the world's largest retailers. Your card details are encrypted end to end and are never seen or stored by Zavoré.

As a rule of thumb, one 20kg tub of marmorino covers 8 to 10m² in two coats, and grassello covers slightly more. Call us with your room dimensions and an installer will spec it for you in minutes.

Start with a sample request to choose your finish, then the three day Beginner Course. The Apprentice Kit contains every tool you need. Most beginners achieve a wall they're proud of on their second attempt, and our phone line is there when you're mid wall and unsure.

If your order turns up damaged, we replace it. Send a photograph to support@zavore.co.uk and in most cases that is the whole process. No form to fill in, and you are not posting a 24kg tub back to prove it. Damage in transit is our problem, not yours, and we cover the postage both ways.

If a product is faulty rather than broken, we will ask to see it back so we can work out what went wrong. That is how we stop it reaching the next person. Once it is with us, a replacement goes out to you straight away.

The one thing we cannot do is take a colour back. Your tub does not exist until you order it. It is tinted to your reference and batched for your project alone, so there is no shelf for it to return to. That is what samples are for. If you are torn between two shades, ring 07592 929191 and an installer will talk it through with you before you spend anything.

You have 30 days from delivery to tell us about any damage in transit, or about a product that turns out to be faulty. Tell us as early as you can and we can still trace the exact batch and the exact van. Do have a look over your order when it lands, because once the 30 days have passed we are no longer able to arrange a return or a refund.

Some things cannot come back at all. Anything we have tinted is mixed for your order and nobody else’s, so a change of mind is not something we can help with. Tools and samples work the same way. A sample is made up by hand for your enquiry, and a trowel or a booklet that has left us cannot go out to another customer afterwards, so those are not ones we are able to take back or refund either. If the error was ours, none of that applies and we will put it right.

One favour in return. If a tub looks wrong when you open it, stop and give us a call before you use any of it. Once it is on the wall neither of us can tell what was in the tub, and we would much rather sort it out while we still can.

None of this affects your statutory rights.

Not exactly, and no honest supplier will tell you otherwise. Lime and marble are quarried materials, and no two loads of stone are identical. The base we tint from shifts very slightly from batch to batch, so two tubs of the same reference, even mixed one straight after the other, will be the same colour and very close to each other. But not a laboratory match.

It only matters in one situation. Starting a fresh tub halfway across a wall, where a small change reads as a line. Two habits prevent it entirely. Order all the material for one continuous surface in a single order, so every tub is mixed for the same job at the same time. And before you start, combine those tubs in one container and mix them together. Decorators call it boxing, and it turns however many tubs you have into one. If you have to open a new tub mid wall, pour a third of it into what is left of the old one and blend the two, so the change fades out gently instead of showing as a hard line.

Coming back for more months later? Give us your original order number and we will get as close to it as the material allows.

Yes. Registered applicators and studios get ten percent off every material automatically once signed in, plus volume pricing, priority dispatch and a dedicated account manager. Apply for a trade account in two minutes; approval usually the same day.