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The base coat render does the structural work. The texture and finish is what people actually see — and it’s the choice that defines the character of the facade for the life of the building. Unitex manufactures a range of acrylic texture and finish products designed for both exterior and interior walls, covering everything from traditional trowel-on render textures through to contemporary polished and mineral finishes. Each product has a distinct application method, aesthetic result, and ideal use case.
This guide is designed to help builders, renderers, and designers match the right product from the Unitex textures and finishes range to the look they’re after and the project they’re working on.
Trowel On Texture: The Workhorse of the Range
Trowel On Texture is the most widely used finish in the Unitex range — and for good reason. It’s an acrylic-bound textured coating suitable for both interior and exterior walls, applied over a prepared render base coat and floated to the desired profile. It delivers the classic sand or scratch textures that define the look of rendered residential facades across Australia, from fine sand through to coarser graffiato finishes.
For volume builders and production renderers working across multiple sites, Trowel On Texture offers consistent, reliable results when applied correctly. It’s a ready-to-use, water-based product with a single-coat application — straightforward to work with at pace without sacrificing finish quality.
The Trowel On Texture range is the go-to choice for standard residential facades, project home builds, and any application where a rendered masonry aesthetic is the specified outcome.
Trowel On Dry Texture: Powder Format for Site Flexibility
Trowel On Dry Texture delivers the same application method and finish profile as the wet range but in a powder format. That distinction matters on sites where storage conditions, transport logistics, or project timelines make a dry product more practical than pre-mixed.
Powder format also gives experienced applicators more control over mix consistency when site conditions vary — useful in hot or windy conditions where working time is compressed, or on larger commercial facades where batch-to-batch consistency needs to be tightly managed.
Tanami Polished Concrete Finish: Premium Texture for Contemporary Projects
Tanami is a different class of product entirely. Inspired by the textures and colours of the Tanami Desert in northern Australia, it’s a premium polished plaster finish that creates a sophisticated, living-wall aesthetic — subtle movement and depth that can’t be replicated with a standard textured coating.
Where most render systems require five coats to achieve a comparable result, Tanami only requires two to three — a significant labour saving on projects where this finish is specified. It can be used to create almost any look including 3D effects, and it works on both internal and external walls, on rendered masonry, precast panels, AAC panels, and Unitex Base Board systems.
Tanami comes in a standard range of shades drawn from the natural palette of the desert — Neutrals including Concrete, Winter Rain, Sand Dune and Amaroo, and Classic Colours including Night Sky, Ocean, Desert Plains, and Rock Face. Custom strength variations (half, quarter, or three-quarter strength) are also available in any standard colour for specifiers who need precise tonal matching.
This is the finish for architect-influenced residential projects, boutique commercial builds, and any application where the facade is expected to make a statement. It requires a qualified applicator experienced in fine and polished finishes.
Roll On Texture: Speed and Consistency for Large Areas
Roll On Texture is applied by roller rather than trowel — a method that delivers faster coverage on large flat wall areas and produces a consistently even, fine-textured finish. It’s particularly well suited to multi-unit residential developments and commercial projects where speed of application across large elevations is a priority and a trowelled texture would create unnecessary labour cost.
The Roll On Texture suits project types where a uniform, low-profile finish is the aesthetic goal — clean, contemporary residential facades, fencing, boundary walls, and feature panels where the texture reads as a background rather than a focal point.
Polished Concrete Finish (Uni-Rock): Texture with Tonal Depth
Uni-Rock is Unitex’s polished concrete finish product — designed to deliver the visual character of concrete without the structural and application demands of actual concrete. It produces a tonal, mottled finish with genuine depth that suits contemporary residential and commercial design aesthetics, particularly where an industrial or raw material influence is part of the brief.
The Polished Concrete Finish (Uni-Rock) is equally effective on interior and exterior walls, and has been used on residential feature walls, commercial facades, and interior fit-out applications. It pairs particularly well with Unitex Base Board systems on contemporary new builds where the facade aesthetic moves away from traditional render profiles.
Veneto Mineral Coloured Finish: Depth and Movement for Distinctive Facades
Veneto is a mineral-based coloured finish that delivers a distinctive textured look with natural colour variation and depth. Like Tanami, it’s designed for projects where the finish itself is part of the design intent — a surface that reads as more than a standard rendered wall. It suits contemporary residential facades, feature walls, and commercial projects where specifiers are looking for a finish that differentiates the building from standard acrylic texture alternatives.
Bagging Finish: Practical and Versatile for Renovation Work
Bagging is one of the most practical finishes in the range for renovation and retrofit applications. It’s designed for application over existing brickwork or masonry — bringing a consistent, textured finish to surfaces that would otherwise need significant preparation work to achieve a smooth render base. For inner-city renovation projects, period home updates, and boundary wall refreshes, Bagging Finish is a cost-effective way to modernise an exterior without the time and cost of full render preparation.
Choosing the Right Finish: A Simple Framework
Matching the right Unitex texture to a project comes down to three questions: What’s the substrate and how much preparation is required? What finish aesthetic has been specified or agreed with the client? And what’s the production requirement — how fast does the application need to move?
For standard rendered facades on new residential builds, Trowel On Texture or Roll On Texture are the default starting points. For contemporary projects with a premium finish specification, Tanami or Veneto are the appropriate choices. For renovation and retrofit work over existing masonry, Bagging Finish or Trowel On are most practical. For any project where the finish is a design feature in its own right, request samples from Unitex before specifying — colour and texture always read differently at full scale than on a swatch.
The full Unitex textures and finishes range — including product brochures, technical data sheets, and safety data sheets — is available on the Unitex website. The Renders and Textures gallery also shows finished project photography across the full range, which is the most useful reference for any builder, renderer, or client trying to visualise a finish before specifying it.
To request samples, calculate quantities, or get product advice for your project, contact the Unitex technical sales team on 1800 RENDER or use the System Quantity and Quote service to submit your plans.
Call: 1800 RENDER (1800 736 337)
Email: sales@unitex.com.au
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