✦
Where Artistry Begins
Seamless floors, walls and bathrooms with no grout lines, laid by our own applicators who travel from Birmingham.
Microcement in Manchester is mostly a question of floors, bathrooms and rooms that want to run into each other without a join. Zavoré is based in Birmingham, and our own applicators travel to Manchester to lay seamless surfaces by hand. We survey the base first, agree colour and sheen on a sample, and tint to the approved sample before anything leaves Birmingham.
Manchester grew on cotton, and the buildings show it. Cotton warehouses and mills in the Northern Quarter, Ancoats and Castlefield have been turned into apartments, offices and bars, with brick walls, cast iron columns and big windows. Those interiors already have texture and character on the walls. What they often lack is a calm, continuous floor and a bathroom that does not feel like an afterthought.
That is where a seamless surface earns its place. Microcement is cement, fine aggregate, polymer and pigment trowelled in thin layers over a primed and reinforced base. It runs from floor to wall and around a shower tray with no grout lines, so a small apartment bathroom looks bigger and is easier to clean. The sealer on top makes it washable, not the cement itself, so the base and sealer decide how it performs.
Out in the suburbs the story is different. Many Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis in Chorlton, Withington, Levenshulme and Didsbury have been knocked through at the back into a kitchen and living space. A single floor running from kitchen to hall to living room, with no threshold strips, suits that kind of plan very well.
Bathrooms and wet rooms, floor and walls in one go. Open plan ground floors. Shower benches, niches and reveals. Kitchen worktops and splashbacks. Stair treads and landings. For restaurants, bars and workplaces it gives a calm, hard wearing look that sits comfortably against the exposed brick and steel of an old mill building.
Our microcement finishes page explains the finish and its limits in more detail. The short version is that hand trowelled microcement carries gentle cloudy movement. If you want one dead flat uniform grey, that is a sheet product, not this.
A seamless surface follows what is underneath it. A springy timber floor, a screed that is dry on top but damp below, or a loose tile will all come through. Older Manchester houses often have timber floors that need stiffening and boarding before any rigid finish goes down, and new apartments can have screeds that are not fully dry. We check both at survey and tell you what has to be put right first.
Existing tiles are often fine as a base if they are firmly stuck, degreased and keyed, with any drummy ones lifted and grout lines filled. In a shower, the tanking behind the finish still has to be done properly, exactly as it would under tile. Microcement is not a substitute for waterproofing the structure.
First a survey, helped by photos if you like. We look at the base, flatness, cracks, movement, damp, access and how the room is used. Then a sample board to settle colour and sheen, because matt is the most natural look but shows water marks more readily on a floor. Greys, greiges, warm stones and off blacks are what most people choose.
Because Manchester is some distance from our Birmingham base, the work is planned in blocks of days. The team stays on the job and lays each stage in order instead of travelling back and forth, and dates are agreed once sample and price are signed off. The detail is on our microcement installation page.
Zavoré installs microcement, and for people who want to buy materials we supply lime built equivalents that give the same seamless look. Pastellone is a seamless lime and marble finish for floors and walls. Beton stucco is a concrete look wall finish. Both are tinted to your colour and sent by tracked delivery. Browse the shop, or ask about a trade account if you buy regularly.
Seamless floors are one option among several, and lime or mineral finishes may suit a particular wall better. Have a look at concrete effect plaster in Manchester, tadelakt in Manchester, polished plaster in Manchester, marmorino in Manchester, limewash in Manchester, clay plaster in Manchester, liquid metal in Manchester and decorative specialists in Manchester. For the classic polished lime finish, see Venetian plastering in Manchester.
Usually yes, if the tiles are firmly stuck, degreased and keyed. Drummy tiles are lifted and made good, and grout lines are filled and reinforced so they do not shadow through later. If the tiles are loose or the floor moves, they come up first.
It often is, because flats in converted buildings tend to have flat, square surfaces and open plan layouts. The thing to check is the screed, which must be dry all the way through, and any movement joints in the structure, which have to be carried through the finish.
The sealer makes it waterproof and washable, not the coating itself. In a shower the tanking behind it must still be done properly, just as it would be under tile. A seamless surface with no grout is much easier to keep clean, but it does not replace waterproofing the structure.
It can if the floor flexes. A springy timber floor will crack any rigid surface however good the material. We stiffen and board the floor first, or tell you plainly if another approach would suit the room better.
Ring 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or email sales@zavore.co.uk with photos, rough measurements and your Manchester postcode. If you would rather start with the material in your hand, order a sample board.
Order a sample board tinted to your colour, or send photos and rough measurements of the walls in Manchester and we will come back to you with the right finish and a clear quote.
For a quote, email photos and measurements of your walls to sales@zavore.co.uk or call 07592 929191, Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm.
See every area we cover.
We also supply the trade by post, wherever you are. The shop ships tracked across the UK, and the Academy teaches the finishes in Birmingham.
Providing luxury finishes for the most prestigious addresses in the world
Venetian plaster, limewash, microcement, tadelakt, metallics, sculptural plaster and gold leaf, supplied and installed by our own team, with Venetian plaster taught at our Birmingham studio.
One list, run by the people who make the material. No noise, and nothing we would not want to read ourselves.
We email as the house has something worth saying, never daily. Unsubscribe from any email, or reply STOP to any text. We never pass your details to anyone.