How do you respond to good food? Do you ever move your shoulders back and forth and smack your lips as you savor that perfectly shaped cheesecake? My son is guilty of dancing when he eats his favorite meal. Give him spaghetti with meat sauce, and you might see his dance moves. But if taste can make us dance, can a pretty sight make us sing?

When I was planning the second bathroom renovation at #casacancado, I wanted to plaster all the walls. My design goal was to clad both the shower area and the dry area in this pretty gray plaster that would visually unify the space. In my mind, the minimal look of the plaster walls with their perfectly imperfect texture was the best match for the bold black and white terrazzo cement floor tiles.

To create this very minimal look, I turned to Tadelakt. Tadelakt is a waterproof plaster surface for interior walls as well as exterior walls. I had asked my contractor if he had ever worked with Tadelakt before, and the answer was no. But not knowing this particular product didn’t stop him from wanting to get involved with this bathroom renovation. Being someone that always likes a new challenge, my contractor was on board with this design idea. 

So, once we had all the materials in place, the demo phase started and soon was followed by plumbing and electrical. After prepping the shower area, the terrazzo floor tiles got installed throughout the entire bathroom. It was now time to move on to the plaster phase of this renovation.

After carefully dissecting the Tadelakt application instructions, day one of the plaster application was looking good. But by the end of day one of plaster application, we caught ourselves staring at a few plastered walls in despair. The texture was super rough, and the color had this undesirable purple hint to it. Things looked so off that we weren’t sure if we should keep moving forward or not.

A renovation journey will often present you with moments of doubt. When things go wrong during a remodel project, sometimes you have to pivot. But I kept thinking about my initial intention for this bathroom. I kept thinking about the simplicity of the materials I wanted in this space. So we decided to keep following the Tadelakt instructions and applied the second and third coats.

I remember I was working from home during day three of experimenting with Tadelakt. It was a cold day, but it was sunny and pretty outside. My contractor had been working for hours that day. I could hear the sound of his trowel as it moved plaster from one side to the other. After a couple more hours, a loud singing session started. Think Bohemian Rhapsody opera singing style. I know my contractor was not taking an actual shower, but my contractor was singing in this newly plastered shower. I knew then that sticking with the original plan had just paid off. It’s so easy to doubt yourself and rethink your plans. While new ideas can be daunting, it is by experimenting that we keep evolving.

This pretty shower might just be center stage to many shower singing sessions from now on. I will be doing a full bathroom tour soon with all the sources and more info.