Stucco, marmorino, polished plaster, Venetian plasters, Italian plaster

Omega Flagship Store

Omega opened its flagship store on Regent Street on Monday.  We spent two weeks finishing the walls in stucco lucido.  The finish is very understated, with very little tonal variation, sharp, angular movement and a high polish.  It takes a lot of skill to produce this finish to Omega's standard - Omega expects the quality of the craftsmanship in its boutiques to match the excellence of their watches.  We appreciate this for reasons twofold: first, it keeps us from becoming complacent, and second, it means that the obsessive nature of our detailing does not go unnoticed.

So we returned from London last week by the skin of our teeth.

We were supposed to fly out of Heathrow on Saturday but as we finished early, we changed our flights to Wednesday, the day before all the airports closed and chaos began to reign at Heathrow.  We arrived home to impassable snowdrifts and have been enjoying the disruption from the comfort of the fireside with a cognac.  Did I say cognac?  I mean beer.

29 Pall Mall, SW1

Paul and Mark recently spent a week working on a project on Pall Mall in London's City of Westminster.  The classic marmorino finish looked beautiful in the soft tobacco shade that the designer had chosen.

Last weekend we were back in London and couldn't resist having another look at how it had turned out.  Work isn't completely finished there yet so the building wasn't open so we peered in through the windows and had some explaining to do when one of the owners came out to investigate these two shady characters with their noses pressed up against the glass...

House X, Killeen Castle

House X in the new Killeen Castle golf community is now finished.  The design by Garuda is stunning.  We were asked to produce two finishes: grassello lucido for the spine wall that bisects each storey of the house, which has an embedded motif.  Suzanne from Garuda wanted the effect to be very subtle, and the motif is mirrored by other elements within the design, such as handmade rugs.

In the basement, the house has a swimming pool.  We were commissioned to produce a finish which would complement the carrara marble.  The finish we used is one of our exclusive techniques, a carrara marmorino with subtle movement and virtually no tonal variation, a technique that has taken many hours in the workshop to perfect.

Lunn's, the Jewellers

The new Lunn's Jewellers is open in Belfast's Victoria Square.  The boutique was designed by Soon Interiors, using lacquered wood, limestone, and probably the most striking feature of all - a white stucco lucido angled ceiling.  It looks like the facets of a gemstone.

We have a couple of photos here, but better still, if you're around Belfast, call in to Victoria Square and see for yourself.

Douglas and Grahame Ltd (just finished)

Today we completed the Douglas and Grahame Ltd corporate headquarters.  It looks amazing.  We used a traditional stucco lucido technique; the final application was a true encaustic wax, which was polished using the hot iron method.

There's nothing subtle about this finish!  Normally on our projects, I often intercept strange looks on the faces of the other trades, people who don't quite get our work.  However, this hasn't happened here.  The finish is just so reflective, people can't help but notice it.

I'm not always a huge fan of the really highly polished stuhhi, but I must admit that this does look stunning.

Douglas and Grahame Ltd

We have just started work on the new Douglas and Grahame Ltd offices.

We have been working with Soon Interiors to come up with the finishes for the reception and lobby areas, as well as the board room.  It should look fantastic: sweeping curved walls in black stucco lucido.

I took this photo earlier.  I don't know why, but I just think the scaffolding looks great!  Weird, no?

John Huddleston Engineering

We've just finished the new reception and offices for John Huddleston Engineering, whose customers include Airbus and Bombardier.

We applied a pearl grey stucco lucido throughout, with an art wall incorporating the company logo.  The art wall was made up of an interlocking geometric design in various tones of grey.  Robert Huddleston's private office was finished in classic marmorino, this time in a warmer, smoky shade.

The official opening was held yesterday.

New Photographer's Gallery, Soho

Along with O'Donnell Tuomey, we have been involved in developing the exterior finish for the new Photographer's Gallery.  It's a deep Venetian red marmorino, applied over a lime plaster base to ensure durability.  It will incorporate cocciopesto, and we can't say any more than this, except that the final finish will be totally unique to this project - and breathtaking.

Large Facade in Marmorino

We are making final preparations before starting an extremely interesting project for O'Donnell Tuomey.  It's a six-storey-high facade on a very unusual building, the Sean O'Casey Community Centre on East Wall, Dublin. 

On this project, we are using a very unique system where we apply specially enhanced natural hydraulic lime base-coats over the cast concrete substrate.  The system follows almost identically the process recommended by Vitruvius; the granulation of the first layer is 4mm, the subsequent layers then grade down as follows: 2mm, 1mm, 0.8mm, 0.6mm, 0.3mm, followed by olive oil soap and potassium silicate.

Eleven processes - a far cry from three layers of acrylic enhanced hydrated lime that some try to pass off as "marmorino".

Cooleville, Co Tipperary

Cooleville was featured in the Irish Times three years ago, and described by Kate McMorrow as a beautiful six-bedroom Georgian house with excellent equestrian facilities, which stands on 90 acres of formal gardens and parkland in the foothills of the Knockmealdowns.

Since last year, we have been privileged to work with Cooleville's current owner, who has an incredible eye for design and colour, and who really "gets" what marmorino is all about.  The finishes she has chosen for each area of the house harmonise to give a warm, luxurious yet uncluttered feel throughout.

Cooleville's generous proportions lend themselves perfectly to the rich, velvety texture and subtle tones of classic marmorino and intonachino.  We have finished the kitchen, breakfast room, boot room, and two of the bathrooms.  Eventually, we hope to finish the entrance hall and another stand-alone bathroom.

While marmorino is now used so often in contemporary design, this project really affirms how ideal these finishes are in the traditional setting of a stately home.

Pictures to the right, and on our website.