The brief
A bathroom that steams often and works hard, where the owners wanted no tiles at all - a deep bronze polished plaster wrapping every wall, including inside the shower.
The colour was the point: a dark, warm metallic tone that would feel intimate under evening light and come alive when the sun reached it.
What we did
Polished plaster inside a shower is a specification question before it is a craft question. We built the walls up on a waterproofed substrate, applied the plaster in tight burnished coats and finished with a wet-room sealing system rated for direct water contact - so the surface is fully waterproof while keeping the depth that only burnished lime gives.
Bronze is an unforgiving colour: every trowel pass shows. That is the character of the finish and we lean into it, working the whole room in one continuous session so the movement is consistent from wall to wall.
Around the window reveals and the shower niche the plaster was carried through without a break, so light rakes across one uninterrupted surface.
The detail
- Deep bronze polished plaster to every wall, including the shower.
- Waterproofed substrate and wet-room sealing system.
- Worked in a single session for consistent movement.
- No tiles, no grout - one washable surface.
The result
The owners have a bathroom that is wiped down rather than scrubbed: no tiles, no grout and no joints anywhere the water goes. The polished plaster sits over a fully sealed, tested build-up, so the wet-room performance is in the layers beneath, not in the top coat, and the finish has lived with steam and daily use since we handed over, maintained with nothing more than a soft cloth. By day the walls turn molten; by lamplight they close in warm and dark.
