Espresso Martini House Boat — Sunshine Coast

The Espresso Martini began with a last-minute callout on Facebook. A luxury boat builder found himself without a painter just before a major boat show — his scheduled painter had cancelled. That first urgent project, the French Martini, led to a lasting partnership and, not long after, the Espresso Martini.

The scope of finishes on this boat was extraordinary. Nothing was done in ordinary house paint. The challenges were left-field — and relentless.

We started with the MDF eaves, which needed serious protection in a marine environment. We sourced Resene X200 as a protective membrane coating and applied it before spraying the panels in our workshop. The number of coats — and the hours of sanding between them — was incredible. Once perfected, the panels were delivered back to the boat for installation.

Onboard, we masked the entire vessel before spraying feature panelling, trims and architraves. Other surfaces were finished in Sayerlack, an Italian coating system more commonly used for high-end cabinetry, chosen for its durability and refined finish rather than relying on conventional architectural paint.

Because this was a boat, ordinary gap filler was never going to be suitable. Every joint was sealed with Sikaflex and finished with painstaking precision. The doors were then brought back to our workshop spray booths, coated in metallic automotive-grade finishes, and returned for installation.

Phil also wanted certain areas of the boat to have more movement and texture. Rather than specifying exactly what he wanted, he simply pointed to the sections and said, “Work your magic.”

We chose a hand-applied textured Marmorino finish, creating depth, movement and contrast against the highly refined sprayed finishes throughout the vessel. It became one of the defining finishes of the project.

The result made such an impression that one of Phil’s clients later asked us to recreate the same look across multiple walls in his penthouse. That project went on to become Serenity, another project featured in our portfolio.

Another challenge came underfoot. The French parquetry timber floor had sustained water damage during construction, but a full re-sand wasn’t an option. The natural texture and character of the timber needed to remain intact.

Fortunately, the floor had been finished with a repairable hardwax coating — a system we knew well. That allowed us to carefully repair the damaged areas before recoating the entire floor, restoring it to as-new condition without losing the texture that made it special.

The final touches included Sikkens Marine clear coatings to the handrails and stair treads — protective, refined and designed to withstand life on the water.

What made Espresso Martini memorable wasn’t just the number of finishes involved. It was the constant need to think differently, adapt systems to a marine environment and find solutions when conventional painting methods simply weren’t enough.