The questions I get asked most.

No. Quotes are free and there’s no obligation. I come out to the job, measure up properly, and send you a written price.

Within one to two days of visiting. It comes in writing with what’s included spelled out, so you’re not guessing.

Typically around four weeks. I work on my own, so I take on fewer jobs than a firm would — if I’m booked up I’ll tell you rather than squeeze you in and rush the work.

Yes, 40% before work starts, with the balance due on completion.

Bank transfer or cash. Invoices are due on receipt.

Yes — £1m public liability cover on every job. Happy to send evidence of it if you want to see it.

Yes. If something isn’t right, I come back and sort it out.

I do. I’m a sole trader, so the person who quotes your job is the person who turns up and does it. No subcontractors and no crew sent in my place.

Essex — Maldon, Heybridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Braintree, Billericay, Basildon, Wickford and the surrounding towns. If you’re just outside, ask anyway.

Yes — there’s a gallery on the site, and more work in progress on Instagram. If you want to see a finish properly rather than on a screen, I’ll bring samples when I come to look at the job.

Yes. Some of the best jobs I’ve done have been a single feature wall — a fireplace surround, a hallway, the wall behind a bed. One area, done properly, changes the whole feel of a room.

Regularly, and it’s the work I enjoy most. If you’re specifying a finish for a client and want to talk through what’s achievable before you commit to it, get in touch.

Yes, and it’s often the best way to use it. A fireplace surround, a hallway or the wall behind a bed — one area done properly changes how the whole room feels, without the cost of doing every wall.

Anywhere from a soft matt through to a deep polish. The final stage is burnishing, and how far that goes is your call — worth talking through, because it changes the character of the room completely.

Pigment goes into the plaster rather than onto it, which opens up tones you can’t get from a tin. More than one tone can be layered into a single wall so the colour shifts across it.

Yes — I hold a Venetian plaster certificate. It isn’t a finish you pick up on the job, and a badly applied wall is obvious and expensive to put right.

People use the terms interchangeably, and for most jobs they mean the same thing — a lime-based finish built up in thin coats and burnished. If you’ve seen a particular look you like, show me a photo and I’ll tell you exactly what it is and whether it will work in your room.

Usually not. Microcement goes on thin, so in most cases it goes over what’s already there. That can be the difference between a bathroom being out of use for a fortnight and for a few days — but I’d want to see the job before promising it, because it depends on what’s underneath.

A concrete finish keeps the movement and cloudiness of the trowel work, so it reads as a natural, textured surface. A flat finish is calmer and more even. I’ve done both recently and they are two very different rooms.

Yes — walls, floors, shower areas and worktops, and it can run continuously through a space with no thresholds breaking it up. That seamlessness is most of the appeal.

No, and it isn’t meant to. It’s applied by hand rather than made in a factory, so it carries movement and character. That variation is the point of the finish, not a defect in it.

Older buildings generally have no damp-proof course — they were built to take moisture in and let it back out. Lime is permeable enough to allow that. Modern gypsum and cement finishes are not, so the moisture gets trapped and comes out somewhere you don’t want it.

Yes. There may be conditions on what can be used, and I’ll talk that through honestly when I come and look — including telling you if it’s a job for a specialist conservator rather than for me.

That’s the aim. On an old building the repair shouldn’t announce itself, so it gets matched to the existing finish rather than a flat modern surface being imposed across the whole wall.

It runs to its own timetable and isn’t a finish to rush. If you’re working to a programme, tell me early and I’ll be straight with you about what’s realistic.

Yes. Ceilings are harder than walls and show more, so they’re worth getting right. Archways, curved reveals and awkward returns too.

Yes — plasterboarding and dry lining for new stud walls, ceilings, extensions and loft conversions, then skimmed out flat afterwards.

Yes. Old textured ceilings taken back and finished flat is one of the jobs that changes a room more than people expect.

Yes. Damp damage, ceiling cracks and make-good after electricians or plumbers, blended into the existing wall so the repair doesn’t show once it’s painted.

Plastering is messy and there’s no getting round that, but the mess should stay in the room being worked on. Floors covered, edges protected, and the place left tidy at the end of each day.