Mike Merola & Sons Plastering logo Mike Merola & Sons Plastering
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Mike Merola & Sons Plastering
Pittsburgh's Trusted Plasterers
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Seamless Finishes for Pittsburgh Specifiers

Tadelakt & Microcementin Pittsburgh, PA

Two seamless finishes most people have seen and few can name. Tadelakt is a polished lime plaster for wet areas. Microcement is a thin cement coating that goes over what is already there. Mike Merola & Sons applies both by hand in Pittsburgh.

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✓ 30+ Years of Hands-On Plastering ✓ Fifth Generation Family Business ✓ Serving Pittsburgh Since 1997
Wet Area Finish

Seamless Wet Area Finishes in Pittsburgh, PA

Almost nobody calls us and asks for tadelakt by name. They describe a bathroom they saw with no tile and no grout lines, or a designer sends a reference image and the material is already specified. Tadelakt is a lime plaster burnished with a stone and sealed with soap, which is what makes it water resistant enough for a shower wall. Microcement is a different animal, a thin cement based coating that goes over an existing surface to give a seamless concrete look on walls, floors and worktops. Both are hand applied, both live or die on the preparation underneath, and both are work the Merola family has been doing to one standard since 1997. In the owner's father's words, quality, long lasting work.

Our Process

How It Works

The same four steps on every job, whatever the work turns out to be.

01

Free Consultation & Quote

Give us a call or submit a quote request online. We will discuss your project, arrange a visit to your Pittsburgh-area home, and provide a detailed, no-obligation estimate. No surprises, no pressure.

02

Scheduling & Preparation

Once you approve the quote, we lock in a start date that works for your schedule. We arrive on time, prepared with everything needed to get the job done right, and protect your home before we begin.

03

Expert On-Site Work

With 30+ years of hands-on plastering and five generations of craftsmanship behind us, our team carries out the work with skill and pride. We keep the workspace clean and keep you in the loop throughout.

04

Final Walkthrough & Completion

When the work is done we walk through every detail with you to make sure you are completely satisfied. We clean up thoroughly before we leave. Your home is left better than we found it.

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What These Finishes Do

The Tadelakt and Microcement Work We Get Specified For

Some of it is a wet room where tile was the obvious answer and the client wanted no grout. Some of it is a floor or a wall that had to change without a tear out. Here is what we are asked for most.

Tadelakt Showers and Wet Rooms

Tadelakt is a polished lime plaster burnished with a stone and sealed with soap, which leaves a water resistant surface. It suits showers and wet rooms with no grout lines to keep clean.

  • Shower walls and enclosures
  • Wet room walls and reveals
  • Burnished and soap sealed by hand

Tadelakt Basins and Built-In Sinks

Basins, built in sinks and vanity tops can be formed in tadelakt as one continuous surface, so the bowl, the splashback and the counter read as a single piece rather than as parts.

  • Basins formed in place
  • Counter and splashback in one run
  • Falls set to the waste

Microcement Walls

Microcement is a thin cement based coating trowelled over walls you already have. It gives a seamless concrete look in a few millimetres, with no tear out and no board joints showing through.

  • Feature walls and full rooms
  • Corners and reveals run seamless
  • Substrate stabilised first

Microcement Floors

Floors take a harder wearing microcement build up over a sound existing slab, screed or tile. The result is one continuous surface through a room, with no seams and no threshold strips.

  • Kitchens, halls and open plan rooms
  • Movement joints carried through
  • Sealed for traffic and cleaning

Microcement Over Existing Tile

Tile does not always have to come off. Microcement can go over sound existing tile once the joints are filled and the surface is prepared, which keeps the dust, the noise and the waste down.

  • Tile checked for hollow and loose units
  • Grout lines filled and levelled
  • Told straight when it has to come up

Sample Panels and Color Development

Color is decided on a sample panel, not on a screen. We prepare panels in the finish and shade under consideration so you and your client can see them in the room's own light before we start.

  • Panels made in the actual material
  • Sheen and texture agreed before work starts
  • Signed off panel kept on site
Our Own Work

A Microcement Wet Room

Three views of the same project, photographed as the work was finishing. Seamless walls, no grout lines, and built-in shelving formed in the same material.

Wet room with seamless pale microcement walls, a formed bench and exposed shower fittings
Seamless microcement walls carried around every corner, with a formed bench.
Shower area finished in microcement with a long formed shelf and no tile joints
A formed shelf running the width of the shower, in the same material as the walls.
Built-in open shelving unit formed and finished in microcement, with tools still on site
Built-in shelving formed in place and finished in microcement. Photographed mid-job.
Choosing Between Them

Tadelakt or Microcement, and Which Suits Which Job

They get talked about together because they both give a seamless surface with no grout, but they are different materials doing different jobs. Tadelakt is lime based. It is polished with a stone while it is still setting and then sealed with soap, and that soap reaction is what makes it water resistant. It is not waterproof, and it is not a substitute for a tanking system behind the finish, but it is the traditional answer for a wet area and it ages softly, with a slight mottle and a low sheen.

Microcement is cement based and it is a coating rather than a plaster. It goes on a few millimetres thick over something that already exists, which is the whole point of it. A tiled bathroom floor, a screed, a plastered wall or a worktop can change appearance without a full tear out. It is harder and flatter than tadelakt, it takes a wider color range, and it is the practical choice for floors and for large continuous areas.

In plain terms, if the surface is a shower, a basin or a wet area and the look wanted is soft and hand polished, tadelakt is usually the right specification. If the surface is a floor, a worktop or a big wall run, or if the budget and the program depend on not ripping out what is there, microcement is usually the right one. Both need a stable, sound substrate. If yours is not, we will say so before anything is priced, because neither material will hide movement underneath it.

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Where We Work

Tadelakt and Microcement Across the Greater Pittsburgh Area

We take this work across Pittsburgh and the surrounding communities, in city homes and out through the North Hills, the South Hills and the eastern suburbs.

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Rooted in Pittsburgh

Why These Finishes Suit Pittsburgh Houses

The city's older housing stock gives you small bathrooms, odd angles and walls that are anything but flat. That is exactly the situation a hand applied seamless finish handles better than a sheet material.

5th
Generation Family Business
30+
Years of Hands-On Plastering
100s
Historic Homes Restored
100%
Pittsburgh-Based & Proud

Small Bathrooms Read Bigger Without Grout

A lot of Pittsburgh bathrooms are tight rooms carved out of older floor plans. Tile breaks a small wall into a grid and makes it read smaller. A single seamless surface carried around the corners and into the reveals gives the eye nothing to count, and the room feels larger than the tape says it is.

Nothing in an Old House Is Square

Walls bow, corners run out and floors fall away, and a rigid sheet or a large format tile shows every bit of it. A material trowelled on by hand is worked to the wall you actually have, which is why these finishes sit better in an older home than in a new build.

Less Tear Out in an Occupied Home

Stripping a tiled floor or wall in a lived in house means dust, noise and a room out of use. Where the existing surface is sound, microcement goes over it, and that keeps the mess and the disruption down. Where it is not sound, we will tell you, because a coating cannot fix a failing substrate.

Straight Answers

Pittsburgh Plaster Questions

How do I know if my walls are plaster or drywall?
Press a thumbtack into an out of the way spot. Drywall takes it easily, plaster is hard and will resist or stop it. Knocking helps too, since plaster sounds solid and dense while drywall sounds hollow between the studs. In a house built before the late 1940s, plaster over wood lath is the likely answer.
Why do the cracks keep coming back after they are filled?
Filler treats the surface, not the reason the wall moved. Cracks usually come back because the plaster has come loose from the lath behind it, or because the house is still settling and shifting with the seasons. The fix is to secure the plaster back to the lath first and deal with the movement, then rebuild the surface. Skip that step and you are refilling the same line next year.
Can plaster be repaired, or does it have to be replaced with drywall?
In most cases it can be repaired. Plaster that is sound and simply cracked or loose in places can be reattached and patched in, and the wall keeps the hardness and the depth that made it worth having. Ripping it out for drywall is a bigger, dustier job than most people expect. We will tell you straight when a wall is too far gone to save.
Do you work in older city homes with original lath?
Yes. That is the bulk of what we do. This is a fifth generation family business with more than 30 years of hands-on plastering behind it, serving Pittsburgh since 1997, and wood lath, three coat plaster and old ceilings are ordinary to us. Estimates are free, so if you want a number, send a photo of the area along with the address and we will come back to you within 2 to 3 business days.
How do you match the texture on an old wall?
By reading the existing surface first and then working the new material to suit it, since a smooth wall, a sand float and a hand troweled finish all need a different approach. Feathering the patch out past the repair is what keeps the join from showing under a raking light. The standard we work to is the one Mike's father set: quality, long lasting work.
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Ready to Get Started?

Send Us the Reference Image

Send the drawing, the reference photo or a picture of the room as it stands and we will tell you which material fits and what it takes to do it properly. Free estimates, no pressure, no surprises.

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5th generation family business · Pittsburgh, PA · Free estimates