Venetian Plaster Techniques - Intonachino as skim coat
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008Rough walls? Orange peel or knock down or worse? Want a nice smooth polished plaster finish but no interest in skim coating and painting before proceeding? Try this Venetian Plaster Technique to minimize your labor and still create a beautifully smooth finished result:
1 - Start with a first coat of Intonachino Medium or Coarse. This should start to give you enough volume to bury the unsightly texture. Intonachino can be applied over sealed drywall indoors, over conventional scratch and brown or modified Portland cements and of course over hydraulic lime scratch coats on exteriors. Let dry overnight.
2- Follow with 2nd coat of Intonachino, same grade as the first coat. Full layer. When this goes to set(firm but not completely dry), push a 2nd layer of Intonachino into it. Use steeper angle on your trowel to push the grain into the set layer. Let that layer go to set and now you are ready to break out the Marmorino Carrara. Push your carrara material into the firm layer. Don’t go in too soon! You’ll find you are able to start polishing with your Marmorino material and that your Intonachino has created a buffer against the original texture of the wall.
Variations - For a really smooth, high polish finish use another coat of Carrara. For a distressed, smooth look leave some openings back into the Intonachino. For a really high sheen finish you can also do this technique with the Carrara instead of Intonachino on the first coats and Classic on the final coats, as long as the original surface is not too rough.
This is a great finish and technique. Fairly easy to do and great results! Check out one of our Venetian Plaster Classes in Seattle if you’d like a little more help.
