Wall Magicians

Talk with Greg or Gabriel now, until 10 p.m. Text us any time. Greg or Gabriel will reply first thing in the morning.

(317) 795-6378
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Deep oxblood walls with a pale tree and birds painted beside a carved bed, in a Zionsville bedroom
Oxblood bedroom with a painted tree, Zionsville

Whole-home wall finishes, with a world in every room

One story from room to room, told in limewash, clay, plaster, color, murals, stencils, and light that changes with the hour.

Book a free consultation Text us a photo of your room

Talk with Greg or Gabriel now, until 10 p.m. Text us any time. Greg or Gabriel will reply first thing in the morning.

How much does it cost to finish a whole home?

We finish a whole home as one story, with a world of its own in every room: decorative wall finishes, color, murals, stencils, and lighting, designed together for homes north of Indianapolis. Whole homes are typically a $10,000 to $50,000 investment, and larger projects are welcome; a 12-by-14-foot bedroom in limewash runs about $1,900.

Rooms in limewash, clay, and plaster

Our own work, in Indiana homes.

  • Bone Marmorino kitchen ceiling that glows at golden hour, Geist

    At golden hour, this kitchen feels like standing inside a cloud lit on fire, and no one sees it for the first time without looking up and saying something. The old textured ceiling became bone Marmorino, a lime plaster with a soft polish that carries the light from the bay windows across the room. The walls are a mineral paint in warm terracotta, Freudian by Edward Bulmer.

    A kitchen ceiling in bone Marmorino lime plaster above terracotta walls and three lantern pendants, in a Geist home
    The ceiling over the island
    Bone Marmorino across the whole kitchen ceiling, soft and cloudy, above three lit lantern pendants and terracotta walls, with trees in the windows below
    Look up: a cloud over the island
    The bone Marmorino ceiling spanning a bay of windows, with a long pendant over the table and terracotta walls
    Across the bay windows
    The kitchen’s bay of windows and its glass door to the deck, framed in white trim on dusty rose and terracotta walls, under the bone Marmorino ceiling and three lantern pendants
    The walls, in Edward Bulmer paint

    Along the way

    The kitchen ceiling before, with a heavy knockdown texture, lantern pendants, and blue tape along the walls
    Before: the old textured ceiling
    Bone Marmorino partly troweled across the ceiling, above dark cabinets and a range hood
    The Marmorino going on

  • Oxblood bedroom with a painted tree, Zionsville

    In this home, each room is a mood of its own, made to shine at the hour it is used and for what happens there. The bedroom is drenched in deep oxblood, with a pale tree and birds painted across the wall. The same home has a Cypress Ink kitchen and a lavender bathroom.

    Deep oxblood walls with a pale tree and birds painted beside a carved bed, in a Zionsville bedroom
    The tree beside the bed
    The oxblood bedroom under a glowing woven ceiling light, with a carved four-poster bed and the painted tree
    The whole room by lamplight
    A pale painted bird and two falling leaves on the oxblood wall, above a table lamp
    A bird in flight on the oxblood

    Along the way

    A member of our team painting the pale tree’s branches onto the oxblood wall beside the bed
    The tree, painted by hand

More of our work

  • Gray-green Cypress Ink limewash on a kitchen wall around a window, above a polished cream marble backsplash, in a Zionsville home
    Cypress Ink limewash kitchen with a cream marble backsplash, Zionsville A kitchen in soft gray-green Cypress Ink limewash, above a backsplash of polished cream marble with no grout lines. The same home has an oxblood bedroom and a lavender bathroom.
  • Close view of the lavender finish, its pale streaks catching the light beside a brass towel ring and a lavender towel, and their reflection in the mirror
    Lavender walls that catch the light, bathroom, Zionsville Marcopolo Luxury by San Marco, one of our imported exotic paints, in a rainfall effect: lavender walls with pale streaks that catch the vanity lights, a gentle start and end to the day. This bathroom shares its home with an oxblood bedroom and a Cypress Ink kitchen.
  • Floating cabinets and shelves plastered in a gray stone texture against a gray-green limewash wall and oak acoustic panels, in a Geist living room
    Stone-texture cabinets and shelves with a Cypress Ink limewash wall, Geist Designed during the free consultation: ready-made floating cabinets and shelves plastered to read as natural stone, a Cypress Ink limewash wall, and natural oak acoustic panels we installed to complete the room. The same home has a Ponderosa clay wall, a Marmorino ceiling, and a play area with boards in the plaster.
  • The inset wall in smoky green Roman clay around an arched window, with a sconce on each side
    Ponderosa Roman clay inset wall and hallway, Geist Smoky Ponderosa green Roman clay wraps the inset wall around the arched window, where two sconces pour light down the clay, and carries on through the hallways. Beside the soft Cypress Ink limewash of the living room, the clay reads like suede.
  • Close view of sage and peach lime plaster meeting in a smooth curve
    Play area in lime plaster, with boards built into the wall, Geist A baby’s play area in limestone plaster, sage and peach meeting in organic curves through the corners, the peach in a stone texture. The pink wall around the window, its casing, and the floating cabinet under the boards glow in a pearlescent wet silk, San Marco’s Cadoro. A magnetic chalkboard and a dry-erase board are built right into the plaster, and the ceiling and trim are a custom warm cream that holds the whole color story together.
  • Warm mushroom Roman clay on the wall between a full bookcase and French doors
    La Catedral Roman clay living room, Zionsville Dark brown walls gave way to La Catedral, a warm mushroom Roman clay with soft movement in the light, and the kitchen wears the same clay. The same home has a golden powder room.

A world in every room

Greg designs one color story for the whole home, then gives each room a world of its own: picture a library in deep waxed clay, a nursery under a painted sky, a hall patterned in stencils, or a dining room whose light warms as evening falls.

Color drenching in limewash and clay

Carry one color over the walls and ceiling, and the room wraps around you: soft and cloudy by day in limewash, and in Moroccan clay, warm as candlelight at night. A drenched powder room becomes a jewel box.

Plaster and clay ceilings

The ceiling is the fifth wall, and the most forgotten. Clay, limewash, Venetian plaster, or tadelakt overhead finishes a room from every angle, and softly polished Marmorino holds the light like a cloud.

A kitchen ceiling in softly polished bone Marmorino, its cloudy movement catching the light above three lantern pendants and terracotta walls, with trees in the windows below
At golden hour, it feels like being inside a cloud lit on fire.

Finishes for every room

Color matching is included

Tips from the studio

  1. Mix finishes, keep one story

    Polished plaster in the dining room, matte limewash in the living room, clay in the bedroom: different finishes, one palette, and the home still reads as one place.

  2. Try a bold palette in the powder room first

    Love a palette that feels a little outside your comfort zone? Start in the powder room. A small room loves all the attention it can get, and you will see the colors come together at full strength. If you love it there, carry it through the house.

  3. Start color with what stays

    Choose wall colors from the things you will not change: the floor, the stone, a rug you love. Greg designs every color around them, so the whole home reads as one story.

  4. Light a room in layers

    One ceiling fixture flattens a room. Mix soft overall light, lamps at eye level, and small spotlights or LED channels on what you love, and the room turns warm, calm, and lived in, with every wall finish awake.

  5. One warm cream above every room

    Ceilings and trim in one warm cream, carried through the house, tie rooms of very different colors into one calm story.

  6. Light that changes with the hour

    Lighting that shifts from bright, clear morning light to low, warm evening light lets one room feel awake at breakfast and intimate at night. Limewash and clay change right along with it.

  7. Give a tall, empty wall some architecture

    A large blank wall reads as unfinished. Wainscoting or a grid of panels adds shadow lines and rhythm, and with limewash or clay above it, the room looks as if it had always been there.

  8. Start with the wall everyone faces

    Not ready to finish a whole room? Start with the fireplace. Every chair already faces it, so one finish there changes how the whole room feels, and the rest can follow when you are ready.

  9. Let a pattern turn the corner

    A geometric pattern that runs past a corner onto the next wall, or up onto the ceiling, blurs the room’s edges and reshapes it to the eye: a low room grows taller, a narrow hall wider.

  10. Plaster the ceiling

    A clay or Venetian plaster ceiling catches the light differently at every hour, and turns a plain room into one where people look up.

  11. Bedrooms want softness

    In a bedroom, choose soft, matte finishes and warm, low colors. Clay and limewash take in light gently, and the room winds down with you.

  12. Dining rooms are seen at night

    Choose a dining room finish in the evening light you will eat by. Deep, polished, or metallic walls glow by candlelight in a way daylight never shows.

  13. A world of their own for a child

    A painted sky, a forest, a map of an invented country: a mural grows with a child, and when they outgrow it, we paint the next chapter.

  14. Build the playroom chalkboard into the wall

    A magnetic chalkboard and a dry-erase board can be built right into a plaster wall, so drawings, lists, and magnets live in the wall itself instead of hanging on it.

  15. Let colors meet in soft curves

    In a nursery or a playroom, let two colors meet in a soft, organic curve instead of a hard corner. The room feels gentler, and the corners seem to disappear.

  16. A calm wall behind your desk

    A clay or limewash wall behind your desk reads beautifully on video: soft depth, no glare, and a calm that follows you into every call.

  17. Hardworking rooms deserve beauty

    The laundry room, the mudroom, the pantry: rooms you use every day. A durable lime or microcement finish in a bright, happy color makes the chores feel lighter.

  18. Quiet a tall room

    Oak slat acoustic panels beside a limewash wall soften the echo of a tall room, and the warmth of the wood answers the warmth of the lime.

  19. Paint the trim the color of the walls

    When the trim, the doors, and the walls share one color, a room feels calmer and taller. Change the sheen instead: matte on the walls, satin on the trim.

  20. Choose a dark made for mineral walls

    Deep colors are the hardest to get right in lime. The Turn, our own collection, is built around its darks, so a moody room starts from colors made for limewash and plaster.

  21. Hallways and stairs take knocks

    Where bags, strollers, and shoulders brush the walls, choose a harder, denser plaster, or put wainscoting below and the softer finish above. Children and dogs will thank you.

  22. Choose the color before the finish

    The finish gives a wall its texture; the color gives it its mood. A color consultation settles the palette first, so every finish in the house belongs to one story.

  23. Judge a color on your wall, never on a chip

    A chip under store lights tells you little. We look at real samples on your walls in the morning and the evening, because north and south light can make one color two.

What you can count on, in writing

Every step, in detail

The investment in a whole home

Every quote is fixed and in writing, room by room or for the whole home.

Whole-home finishes typically $10,000–$50,000
A clay ceiling $2,200–$3,700about 200 sq ft at 8 to 10 feet
Limewash walls from about $5 per sq ft of wall
What shapes your investment
  • Wall condition and repairs
  • Ceiling height, ladders, and scaffolding
  • Ceilings and hard-to-reach surfaces
  • Outlets, crevices, and tight corners a trowel can barely reach
  • Niches, curves, and returns
  • Which stone we reproduce, and in how much detail
  • Framing for mantels and built-ins
  • Small projects, which carry a minimum
  • Rush schedules and overnight work
Get my fixed quote Every investment, in one place

Questions about whole homes, color drenching, and ceilings

What is color drenching?

Color drenching means finishing the walls and the ceiling, and often the trim, in one color, so the room reads as one enveloping space. It is richest in limewash and clay, whose color moves with the light.

What are decorative wall finishes?

Decorative wall finishes are applied by hand and give walls the color, depth, and texture plain paint cannot: limewash, Roman and Moroccan clay, Venetian plaster and marble, Marmorino and faux stone, tadelakt, microcement, and exotic paints.

How do you make a whole home feel cohesive?

With one whole-house color palette: a few colors and materials that carry from room to room. Each room can still have its own character, through color, murals, stencils, and lighting. Because we paint, plaster, build the built-ins, set up the lighting, and repair any damage, the story never passes between several contractors.

How do you color drench a room?

Choose one color, or a few depths of one color, and carry it over the walls, the ceiling, and often the trim. In limewash or clay, a drenched room never looks flat.

Is color drenching a fad?

No. Some call it a trend, but the effect lasts: one color makes a room calm and enveloping, and in limewash or clay it keeps changing with the light. To try it, start with a powder room.

Can limewash or Venetian plaster go on a ceiling?

Yes. Limewash, clay, Marmorino, Venetian plaster, and tadelakt all go on ceilings. A flat clay ceiling of about 200 square feet runs $2,200 to $3,700.

Tell us about the rooms you keep picturing

Greg or Gabriel replies today, or by the next business day.

Prefer to talk? Call or text (317) 795-6378.

How should we reach you?

A phone number or an email address is enough.

Preferred contact
Where should the magic happen?
Where is the home?Where is the business?

For example, Whitestown, Broad Ripple, or Lebanon

When would you like to walk in and see it finished?
Is the holiday a firm deadline?

Photos of the space (optional)

Up to six photos. One wide shot and one close view of the wall help most.

    We will contact you about your project using the details you provide. See our privacy notice.

    Talk with Greg or Gabriel now, until 10 p.m. Text us any time. Greg or Gabriel will reply first thing in the morning.

    Call (317) 795-6378 Text Book a free consultation
    Wall Magicians

    support@wallmagicians.com

    Talk with Greg or Gabriel now, until 10 p.m. Text us any time. Greg or Gabriel will reply first thing in the morning.

    Call (317) 795-6378 Text us a photo of your room