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Walls & feature walls
On a wall, advanced microcement is hand-trowelled, with soft clouding that shifts as the light moves through the day. That clouding and the movement from the blade come with the material. No two walls come out the same. It goes over plasterboard, render, sound paint or tile. Walls only? X-Micro is the kit.
Flat first.
Microcement is thin. It follows whatever’s under it, so a rough, uneven or damaged wall shows through unless you fix it first. Hold a lamp close and angled along the wall. Hollows and trowel ridges show straight away, and they’re what you’ll still see when you’re done.
Plasterboard should be finished to a paint-ready standard, joints set, with a strip of mesh over each one, because a sheet joint is the one place a wall moves. Painted walls are fine if the paint’s stuck; anything flaking comes off. Old soft plaster is the one to watch: a hard coating over weak plaster tears the plaster off the wall within weeks. If the wall’s old and crumbly, send us a photo before you buy.
Tiled? The tiles stay.
Tiles get keyed so the primer grips, and the grout lines get filled flush with the acrylic render base so the pattern can’t show through.
Tell us you’re going over tiles and we’ll include the base.
Which kit.
Pick Wall in the builder, then Dry for a living room, bedroom or hallway. A bathroom or laundry wall is Wet, and that kit adds mesh.
X-Micro is the wall kit: one super-fine grade, the smoothest finish, for a wall you stand close to. Xtreme comes in fine and goes on walls too, but you don’t need its hardness on a surface nobody walks on. Buy Xtreme for walls only when the same job has a floor and you want one product throughout.
Sealer and cleaning.
A wall takes almost no wear, so the sealer’s job is stains and fingerprints. Still the last coat and the one not to skip; unsealed cement marks easily.
Clean with a pH-neutral cleaner and a soft cloth. Walls go years between reseals.
Four things people ask about this room.
01 What is microcement?
A skin, not a slab. Microcement (micro cement, microtopping, same thing) is a thin cement-based coating you trowel on by hand in a few passes. The whole system ends up about as thick as a couple of coats of paint, and it sets as one surface with no grout and no joins.
Because it’s that thin it goes over what’s already there: tile, render, or a wall that’s never been finished. It also means whatever’s underneath does the structural work. A kit goes on in layers: primer, advanced microcement, sealer.
Entry 01 in the FAQ02 Does microcement crack?
Not on its own. It’s a thin, flexible mineral coating, and on a sound surface it stays in one piece.
What it can’t do is hold together something moving underneath it. A couple of millimetres of coating won’t restrain a slab, so if the surface cracks or a movement joint runs through the area, that comes through. Movement joints get carried through the coating, not covered, and wet-area kits add mesh to stop joints and grout lines showing.
Cracks in a finished floor nearly always trace back to what’s underneath. Tell us what you’re covering and we’ll tell you what it needs.
Entry 04 in the FAQ03 Which kit, X-Micro or Xtreme?
Go by what you’re covering, not what you want to spend. X-Micro is the wall kit: one super-fine grade for a smooth finish, and in a bathroom it’s the finish over your waterproofing. Xtreme does walls and floors, in coarse, medium and fine, and it’s harder wearing.
Walls only? X-Micro will do it. You don’t need Xtreme’s hardness on a surface nobody walks on. Any floor in the job? Xtreme.
Entry 07 in the FAQ04 Microcement vs venetian plaster
Venetian plaster is a decorative lime finish for walls, loved for its polished depth. Microcement is a harder-wearing cement-based coating that also works on floors and in wet areas. If the surface gets walked on, splashed or scrubbed, microcement. For a purely decorative wall, both work; it comes down to the look.
Entry 13 in the FAQGo straight to the kit.
These are supply kits: primer, advanced microcement, sealer and the hand tools. You do the work. What a kit costs and covers.
