Why we specify it.

Lime plaster has been in our standard specification since 2021. It is applied in three coats over four days, which is longer than gypsum board and skim, and it costs roughly forty percent more on the first pass. The case for it is what happens over the following decade.

Lime takes up and releases moisture rather than trapping it. In the stone houses we work on along the coast, that single property removes most of the damp problems that synthetic finishes create.

How it reads in a room.

A lime wall is slightly uneven, and the unevenness is the point. Light grazes across it and reveals the trowel, so a flat wall carries a faint texture through the day instead of sitting dead. Photographs flatten this almost entirely, which is why we ask clients to visit a finished wall before deciding.

The color sits inside the material, mixed with pigment rather than painted on top. A scuff exposes more of the same color instead of a white substrate, so the wall ages without needing a touch-up kit.

Where it is the wrong choice.

Lime is alkaline and slow to cure, and it does not belong behind a shower or on a surface that will be washed daily. We use tile or stone there and keep lime to the dry rooms.

It also needs a plasterer who has done it before. On a 2022 project we lost two weeks to a crew learning on site, and the finish still had to be floated again.