Venetian Plaster serving Dallas Texas

Venetian Plastering, Inc.

2008-11-30T13:55:00.001-08:00

Doyle L Self II, the owner of Venetian Plastering, Inc. has been in the decoration field since the age of 18. Eight years ago

Doyle became the Exclusive distributor for Safra Colors here in the USA and "The School of Italian Plasters was born. Safra Colors is considered the worlds leader in Italian decorations.

Over the years he has taught thousands of people the lost art of Venetian Plaster. It is no wonder people in the decorative art trade has dubbed Doyle as the "Plaster King" The key to his success can be summed up in a single word, passion.

His passion for decoration has taken him to many places to perfect this trade. He has been trained in Faux Effects, AdiColor, Spatula Stuhhi, Armourcoat, Amercian Clay and Safra Colors.

When Argentina decided to restore the Colon in Buenos Aries it was Doyle Self they called for advise with this project. Even though he has been trained in 100's of faux finish techniques his passion lies with the Italian Decorations, "the original Faux Finish". Being trained every year in Italy keeps him not only at the top of his field, but also keeps him motivated by learning new products and techniques.

He is also the first to use more modern spray applications for some of these historic plasters. This can greatly reduce the cost on large projects. Even though all Italian plasters can not be sprayed he has spent many hours developing the ones that can. These spray finishes are cost effective for Hotels, Condos and giving an entire home the look of a traditional hand toweled finish.

His experience does not just stop with the artistic aspect of Venetian Plasters. He has worked on many major projects around the country including malls, airports, hotels, restaurants and exclusive estate homes. His team is considered the best of the best. These plaster artisans have been trained by Doyle and all have that same attention to detail that all his projects are famous for. If you are looking for one room in your home done in Venetian plaster, or 100,000 square foot done in Venetian Plaster, venetian Plastering, Inc. is clearly the preferred choice.
We concentrate or work in the Dallas, Texas area, but we always will consider interesting projects abroad.

History of Mantovano

2008-10-29T06:04:00.000-07:00

The Mantovano finish, as a technique, has a very interesting past, which I would like to summarize.
I have to start from a short historical introduction.
According to the information we managed to gather, such technique dates back to the late years 1100, when Architect Alberto Pitentino modified the flow of the river Mincio to create four artifical lakes around Mantova, to gain more space to extend the city and for defensive reasons both.

At the time to wander outside the city was a dangerous thing to do and people would look for raw materials as close to their city walls as possible. Well, unlike the limesones used by the people of Venice, who would avoid touching the dangerous mainland and would thus pick up the stones by boat from the delta of the Brenta river closeby, the inhabitants of Mantova would pick the limestones from the waters of the Mincio river and the lakes around the city. The Mantova limestones though would give a kind of lime finish much more fluid than the Brenta limestones. The resulting finish had therefore to be applied by brush and trowel.
Such finish knew top popularity during the Reanissance, when the Gonzaga family (who seized power from the Bonacolsi family in 1328 and ruled the city for three centuries)used to be one of the most important European courts, hosting artists like Pisanello, Mantegna, Perugino, Correggio, LB Alberti, Giulio Romano, Rubens and many more. In that period the architecture of the city was deeply changed and many of Mantova's famous palaces were built, with the participation also of the noble families of the time.
The Mantovano Stucco finish and technique lost popularity in the following centuries with the decline of the city and disappeared.
We are less than 50 km away from Mantova and we could not let a such unique traditional finish disappear. After a few years of research in the libraries of Mantova we managed to figure out the original application technique and important clues on the finish formulation. After some more lab-work we managed to bring back to life the Mantovano Stucco, the one you are proposing today.
Inside your Mantovano can you have a small piece of Italian history, following hand-in-hand the rise and fall of a city which in time has been one of the wealthiest and more powerful cities of Italian history.
This finish is only seen in Italy in castles and palaces or the very wealthy because on the time consuming process.
GianFranco wrote this: the chemist who formulated the Mantovano finish.

History of Coccio Pesto

2008-10-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

Stuccoes and mortars are composed by binder, aggregates and extenders.
The main traditional binders to formulate mortars and stuccoes are limes, cement and gypsum.
According to the final use, lime based mortars and stuccoes can be composed by:
common lime or lime putty, that hardens only on open air;
hydrated lime that, as the above, hardens only on open air;
hydraulic lime, that hardens in water too.
The typical aggregates for lime stuccoes are sand and marble dust. Since from the Roman times, to those have been added, if needed, extenders able to modify the hydraulic properties of the binder by physical-chemical interaction. In this way, by increasing the hydraulicity is possible to obtain more hardness.
The extender par excellence, utilized already by Romans to add resistance to mortars and stuccoes, is pozzuolan. This is a volcanic rock, that is crushed at the same size of the aggregates.
Another material that can be considered as a pozzuolan is coccio pesto, obtained by crushing old roof tiles or old bricks made, notoriously, of cooked clay, chemically composed of aluminium silicates.
Coccio pesto was used by Romans in regions where was impossible to find the pozzuolan and is still used in places like Venice, where is necessary, in order to have a good weatherproof finish, to use stuccoes and mortars greatly hydraulics, that means more resistant.
Coccio pesto, besides giving great hydraulicity to the stucco, allows to do quite thick layers for its lightness, and gives the final characteristic salmon colored surface due to the crushed reddish clay.
Mainly, the Romans used coccio pesto for the rough coat, the first layer of plaster, and than they were going over it with two layers of lime and sand to finish it with lime and marble dust in different coats, the so called opus marmoratum (marmorino). The last coat, very thin and made of lime and fine marble dust was the opus albarium (lime stucco). This cycle, being very expensive in terms of materials and work, was used only in important structures.
In common and cheap building, normally were adopted plasterworks with less number of coats. In particular were avoided the stucco coats, while was kept the rough coat made in coccio pesto, just for its peculiar characteristic to give more hydraulicity, so more resistance to the plaster.
In the specific case of Venice, coccio pesto has always been used either for rough coats and for finishing coats. As previously said, coccio pesto gives to stucco and mortar a characteristic salmon color, more or less accentuated according to the quantity and the fineness of the clay. This color cannot be obtained with earth pigments, so the use of coccio pesto has contributed in characterizing Venice’s chromatic look.