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Where Artistry Begins
Burnished, soaped Moroccan lime for wet rooms, laid by our own applicators who travel from Birmingham.
Tadelakt in Essex is chosen for bathrooms that have a story to tell, a low beamed cottage bathroom, a converted barn shower, a loft en suite with a sloping ceiling. Zavoré is based in Birmingham, and our own applicators travel to Essex to burnish and soap it by hand. Tadelakt is Moroccan lime plaster, polished with a stone and finished with olive oil soap, which makes it water resistant with no film or sealer on top.
Essex has thousands of old cottages, farmhouses and barns, many of them now family homes. Their bathrooms are often squeezed under rafters, around chimney stacks or into awkward corners, with walls that lean and ceilings that slope. Tile struggles with that, because every cut and every grout line shows. Tadelakt is laid wet and rounded into corners, so it runs over curves, around a niche and into a bench as one surface.
There is a second local reason. Much of the south east of England, Essex included, has hard water, and hard water leaves limescale. The usual answer is a limescale spray, and that is the one thing tadelakt cannot take, because acid attacks lime. Tadelakt is looked after with a mild soap wash, wiping or squeegeeing after use, and an occasional fresh soaping. If you are happy with that routine, hard water is no problem. If you want to blast the shower with a bathroom spray every week, choose another finish and we will say so.
Our tadelakt finishes page covers the material in detail. In Essex houses it suits the following.
It is the wrong finish for floors with heavy traffic and for anywhere you want sharp, ruler straight edges. The surface is not flat or glassy. It has a soft low sheen with faint mottling, and two panels burnished on different days will not match exactly. That variation is part of the character.
Tadelakt wants a mineral, absorbent, stable base, such as a sand and cement render or lime render. Plasterboard on its own is not that. In a wet area, board needs tanking and a suitable rendered base built up over it before any lime goes on, and a modern skim is a poor bed for it. In older Essex houses the lath and plaster or timber studs behind a bathroom wall often have to be rebuilt as a tanked, rendered wall first. Tadelakt is a finish, not a waterproofing system on its own, and that is the honest centre of every quote.
We survey first, looking at what the wall is made of, how it is tanked and where the water falls. A burnished sample board then settles colour, because lime fast pigments give clay reds, ochres, olive greens, plaster pinks, off whites and charcoals rather than anything vivid. The tadelakt is tinted before it leaves Birmingham. Because the work is some distance from our base, it is planned in blocks of days, so burnishing happens while the plaster is at the right point of set. See our tadelakt installation page.
If you have a skilled plasterer, the shop sells tadelakt in 16kg tubs, with light and dark finishing soap and Marseille soap for upkeep, delivered tracked across the UK. We will also tell you it is the hardest finish we stock, so for a bathroom you use every day we would lay it ourselves. Builders and plasterers who buy regularly can ask about a trade account.
For other rooms, see polished plaster in Essex, marmorino in Essex and clay plaster in Essex on dry walls, or limewash in Essex for old cottage rooms. Prefer a hard wearing floor as well? Look at microcement in Essex. There is also concrete effect plaster in Essex, liquid metal in Essex and the full range under decorative specialists in Essex, plus the classic craft in Venetian plastering in Essex.
Yes, if the wall behind is tanked and rendered properly first. Barn conversions often have new boarded walls beside old brick, so we survey each wall and say what base it needs before the lime goes on.
Hard water leaves limescale, and the usual limescale removers are acidic, which lime cannot tolerate. Wipe or squeegee the shower after use, wash with mild soap, and re soap now and then. Avoid bleach, sprays and scouring pads.
It suits them well. It is laid wet and rounded into corners, so slopes, niches and awkward junctions run as one surface, with no tiles to cut around.
Not directly in a wet area. The shower wall is tanked and then rendered before the lime goes on. In a dry room a suitable rendered base over board can work. A bare modern skim is not a bed we would use.
Ring 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or email sales@zavore.co.uk with photos, rough measurements and your Essex 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 Essex 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.
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