What Is The Best Surface For Shower Walls?

• Are you looking for something different to tiles in your bathroom?

• Did you buy a 70s style home and the bathroom has outdated brown, blue, blush or green tiles?

• Are you sick of scrubbing soap build-up from grout in-between tiles?

• Are you looking to achieve a seamless, concrete aesthetic in your shower, just like you see in your favorite Interior Design magazines?

• Do you love the look of polished plaster but you can’t use it in a shower because it’s not water-resistant?

If you answered yes to one or all of the above, then we’re glad to say, you’re in the right place.

We’re suckers for good bathroom design. From the joinery, lighting, floor and wall finishes, right down to the towel rail - we love a well-designed bathroom oasis and we especially love seeing bathroom makeovers transforming old to new. Working with a lot of designers and homeowners day in and day out, we’ve come to understand what they’re looking for in a floor or wall finish in their bathroom, especially a shower as they want a surface that’s durable, easy to maintain, ties in beautifully with the rest of the bathroom aesthetic and most importantly is suitable for wet areas.

By default we’ve noticed most clients automatically gravitate towards tiles for their bathroom, it’s what we’ve become accustomed to seeing in a wet area for years. But this trend has started to change in recent years and we love to see it! Enter X-Bond. If you’re not yet familiar with X-Bond you can read more about the product here; however, in short, X-Bond Microcement is a cementitious overlay system that’s hand trowelled over an existing substrate (e.g. over concrete, compressed sheeting, plaster, villa board and even over old tiles).

X-Bond is like the ‘James Bond’ of microcement. It’s strong, versatile, easy to maintain, timeless and looks good in the shower. It’s becoming frequently specified in projects in both Australia and around the world.

Due to X-Bond being hand trowelled, the finish has visible trowel marks which create texture, tonal, and color variation - making for a modern backdrop again chrome hardware or a rustic texture. There are different ways X-Bond can be finished for a wall surface. There’s X-Bond Seamless Stone; which achieves a rustic look or X-Bond Polished Stone; sanded to create a polished concrete look.

Within a shower X-Bond can be applied over existing tiles (hello remodel without removal!) or if you’re starting from scratch, over villa board, blue board or other substrates that are suitable for wet areas.

To learn more about X-Bond, including a list of frequently answered questions, click here.