The Brief
A wet room in a detached property in Orpington, tiled throughout in Arabescato marble: a white Italian marble with bold, dramatic grey veining. The client wanted the marble to run floor to ceiling on the walls and across the floor, with a recessed shower niche and a fully open wet room layout draining to a floor gully. Arabescato is an expensive, characterful stone, and the brief was to let the veining carry the room.
The Challenge
Marble in a wet room is one of the least forgiving jobs in tiling. Arabescato is porous and reactive: the wrong adhesive causes bloom, white mineral deposits that migrate up through the stone and cannot be removed, and unsealed marble absorbs grout haze and water staining permanently. On top of the material risk, the veining had to read as continuous. Arabescato with the vein running in mismatched directions across a wall looks like offcuts rather than a considered installation. The niche compounded it: the vein needed to carry through the reveal and back wall of the recess rather than stopping dead at the opening. And underneath all of it, the wet room had to be fully tanked and the floor graded correctly to the drain, because no amount of expensive marble compensates for a wet room that leaks.
Arabescato marble to full height, with the vein running continuously through the recessed niche 
The graded floor falling cleanly to the drain, marble laid over a fully tanked substrate The Solution
I tanked the room completely, floor and walls, before any stone went up. The floor was graded to the gully with a consistent fall. For the marble I used a white flexible adhesive rated for natural stone, not a standard grey adhesive, to eliminate any bloom risk through the pale stone. Every piece was pre-sealed before grouting so the grout could not haze into the face. I planned the vein direction across the whole room on paper first, then dry-laid the wall pieces to confirm the flow before fixing, cutting the niche pieces so the veining carries through the reveal and across the back of the recess. Grout was matched to the mid-grey of the vein so the joints recede.
The Result
The finished wet room reads as continuous sheets of Arabescato rather than individual tiles. The veining flows across each wall and carries cleanly through the niche. The floor falls neatly to the drain with no ponding, the marble face is clean and evenly sealed, and the tanking behind it is comprehensive and invisible. It is exactly the kind of premium natural stone work that rewards taking the time to get the adhesive, sealing, and setting out right.
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