✦
Where Artistry Begins
Burnished and soaped Moroccan lime, water resistant with no tile, grout or silicone. Supplied with its soap, or installed by our own team on a properly prepared wall.
Tadelakt in Surrey is for people who want a shower or bathroom with no tile and no silicone, and for the home spa rooms that larger houses increasingly include. It is Moroccan lime plaster, burnished with a stone and then soaped, so it resists water without a film or sealer on top. Zavoré supplies tadelakt with the soap that finishes it, and our own team, who travel from Birmingham, install it. Order a burnished sample board to see the sheen.
It is the hardest finish we sell and the wall behind it matters as much as the lime, so we will be straight about both.
Surrey bathrooms come in awkward shapes. Loft conversions put en suites under sloping ceilings. Cottages in the Surrey Hills have low beams, thick walls and odd corners. Victorian and Edwardian villas have large bathrooms with high ceilings, and 1930s semis have a family bathroom squeezed between two bedrooms. Bigger detached houses may have a spa bathroom, a steam room or a shower room off a ground floor extension.
Tadelakt copes well with all of these, because it is happiest on curves. It runs into a niche, over a bench and around a reveal as one surface, and a stone can burnish a radiused corner where a tile would need cutting. Sloping ceilings and rounded alcoves are where it earns its keep.
Tadelakt is a finish, not a waterproofing system. It needs a mineral, absorbent, stable base, such as a sand and cement or lime render. Plasterboard on its own is not enough in a wet area, so a new extension or loft en suite built on board needs tanking and a suitable rendered base first. A modern skim is a poor bed for it, and we would not work over one in a shower.
Older solid walls are different. A lime rendered cottage wall is exactly the type of base tadelakt suits, and it stays breathable. Corners are formed radiused rather than sharp, and the render has to be flat and true, because tadelakt follows what is under it.
Our tadelakt finishes suit these places.
We would not use it on a floor that takes heavy traffic. It also dislikes acids, so cleaners such as limescale removers, bleach and bathroom sprays will harm it. Colours come from lime fast pigments, so expect clay reds, ochres, olive greens, pinks and charcoals rather than anything vivid. Expect variation too, because two panels burnished on different days will never match exactly.
We survey first and look hard at the build up of the wall, the tanking, access and how the room is used. We say plainly if the base needs rebuilding. The burnished sample board comes next, so you can judge the sheen and colour. Colour is tinted in our 48 house colours before it leaves Birmingham.
Burnishing has a short window and cannot be rushed, so a Surrey job is planned in blocks of days with the team staying on site. Our tadelakt installation page covers the process. Care afterwards is simple. Wipe the shower down, wash with mild soap, and have it re soaped now and then.
The shop sells the plaster in tubs tinted to your colour, light and dark finishing soap, and Marseille soap for upkeep. If a rendering contractor is already on site, they may want to ask about a trade account. For a shower you use every day, we would still ask you to call and let us lay it.
For other wet areas compare microcement in Surrey, which gives a seamless floor and shower, and concrete effect plaster in Surrey for dry walls. Tadelakt belongs to the same lime family as marmorino in Surrey, clay plaster in Surrey and limewash in Surrey. Polished walls elsewhere in the house are covered by polished plaster in Surrey, and a bold wall by liquid metal in Surrey. See decorative specialists in Surrey for the whole range and Venetian plastering in Surrey for the classic lime plaster.
Yes, and sloping ceilings and rounded corners suit it. The shower walls must be tanked and given a suitable rendered base first, because tadelakt is not a waterproofing system on its own. We check what is behind the board at survey.
Often yes, provided the build up is right for lime. Tell us early what is planned, and we will advise on the render and the tanking before the work starts, so the base suits a burnished finish.
With mild soap and water. Avoid limescale removers, bleach, bathroom sprays and scouring pads, which all attack lime. Wipe or squeegee the shower after use and re soap the wall occasionally to restore the sheen.
Often it is a very good match, because a lime render breathes and suits older masonry. We check for damp first, since a damp wall must be put right before any finish goes on.
Tell us what the shower walls are made of and we will say what they need. Call 07592 929191 (Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm) or email sales@zavore.co.uk with photos, rough measurements and your postcode. You can also order a sample board and start from there.
Order a sample board tinted to your colour, or send photos and rough measurements of the walls in Surrey 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.