Twenty Years of London Surfaces. Every One Built to Last.
Specialist tiling and surface installation for London’s most considered homes, period properties, and commercial spaces.
Founded by Gero Marceno — a tiler with more than twenty years across London’s most demanding homes, period properties, and commercial spaces — Tile in Progress is built on one principle: do the work properly and the reputation follows.
Gero grew up in Sicily and came to the UK in the early 2000s with a trade background and a standard that has not shifted in the two decades since. He started tiling London surfaces and did not stop. Over time he built a reputation not through advertising but through the quality of what he left behind — kitchens, bathrooms, hallways, external terraces, period drawing rooms, hotel lobbies — and through the clients who called him back for the next job and the one after that.
The projects changed. The brief on a Victorian terrace cloakroom in Islington is different from a full kitchen renovation in a Notting Hill townhouse, which is different again from a garden terrace at a Chelsea property or a commercial reception floor in a Mayfair office. But the approach has never changed. Every substrate assessed before a tile is touched. Every material specified correctly for what it needs to do. Every line and transition considered as part of the wider space rather than resolved on the day.
More than twenty years of London tiling gives you a very specific kind of knowledge. You learn which materials move and which do not. You learn how period buildings behave differently from modern construction and what that means for the adhesive, the substrate, and the grout joint. You learn that the detail nobody photographs — the flatness of the floor, the alignment across a threshold, the height of the cut tile at the top of the wall relative to the one at the bottom — is the detail that the client notices every day for the rest of the time they live there.
That knowledge is what Tile in Progress is built on.
The detail nobody photographs is the detail the client notices every day for the rest of the time they live there.
Tile in Progress takes on the full range of tiling and surface work across London residential, period, and commercial projects. The material is chosen for what the space needs. The installation is executed to the same standard regardless of what that material is or where it goes. We work with large format porcelain and natural stone, traditional mosaics and handmade zellige, honed limestone and bookmatched marble, exterior paving, and architectural entrance surfaces — specified correctly and installed with the same discipline across every project type.
Bathrooms and en-suites. From a compact Victorian terrace cloakroom to a full master bathroom with built-in bath and walk-in shower, we work at every scale and at every level of specification. Waterproofing, substrate preparation, large format installation, tile drenching, pattern work, and finish — all executed with the same attention to detail and the same long-term structural integrity.
Kitchens. Kitchen tiling requires precision in a different way from a bathroom — layout alignment with cabinetry, splash-back continuation, floor transitions between materials, and a finish that holds up to daily use for decades. We work with every kitchen material and every kitchen layout, and we brief ourselves on the wider design before we start so that the tiling is part of the room rather than fitted around it.
Period and heritage properties. London is full of period buildings — Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian homes that move, breathe, and respond to moisture in ways that modern construction does not. Tiling a period property correctly requires an understanding of lime substrates, movement allowances, breathable adhesive systems, and sympathetic material choices that respect the character of the building. We have worked in period properties throughout our twenty-plus years in London. We understand what they need.
Hallways, entrances, and stairs. The hallway is the first surface a visitor sees and the most walked-over surface in the home. It requires materials specified for durability and slip resistance as well as appearance, and a layout that works with the architecture of the space rather than fighting it. We work in Victorian geometric encaustic, large format stone, and everything in between.
Exterior terraces, patios, and garden paths. Exterior tiling is technically demanding in ways that interior work is not. Frost resistance, drainage gradients, correct adhesive specification for temperature variation, adequate slip ratings, and a surface that performs in every London season. We specify and install exterior surfaces that look right from day one and hold for decades.
Commercial and hospitality spaces. We work with commercial clients on restaurant fit-outs, hotel renovations, retail entrances, office receptions, and hospitality spaces where the brief is exacting, the programme is tight, and the finish has to be correct first time. Commercial tiling is a different discipline from residential. We are comfortable in both.
Most of what makes a tiled surface succeed or fail is invisible once the tiles are laid. The flatness of the substrate, the choice of adhesive, the movement joints, the waterproofing in wet areas — these are the decisions that determine whether a surface looks the same in twenty years as it does the day we leave. We give them the same attention as the tile layout and the grout colour.
Large format porcelain on a stud wall behaves differently from honed natural limestone in a wet room, which behaves differently from handmade zellige on a kitchen splash-back, which behaves differently from exterior stone in a north-facing London garden. Each material has specific requirements for adhesive, substrate preparation, movement, and long-term maintenance. We specify correctly and install accordingly.
The difference between a good tile installation and an exceptional one is most often measured in millimetres. The height of the cut tile at the top of the wall relative to the cut at the bottom. The alignment of grout joints across a door threshold. The symmetry of a pattern from the centre of the room outward. Where there are niches in the design, we plan them from the outset so a full tile sits within the recess wherever possible. A niche with a cut tile on one side is a decision that was made too late. These are not things most clients specify. They are things we do regardless, because we notice when they are wrong and we know the client will too.
A tiling installation that runs late or diverges from the brief causes problems for everyone on the project. We manage our work with the same discipline we bring to the installation itself. Clear programme. Early flagging of any issue. Consistent communication with the client and with any other trades or designers on the job. The work finishes when it was supposed to, to the standard it was supposed to reach.
Our clients are homeowners, interior designers, architects, developers, and commercial operators who know what they want and want a tiling partner who will deliver it without needing to be chased or managed. Trusted by clients across London for over two decades, most of our work comes through recommendation and most of those clients stay across multiple projects.
We work at every residential scale — from a single cloakroom in a London terrace to a full multi-room renovation across a substantial period townhouse. We take on commercial commissions where the brief, the material specification, and the finish standard align with how we work. The size of the project does not change the standard we hold ourselves to. A 3m² cloakroom receives the same substrate preparation and finish care as a 30m² master bathroom or a 200m² hotel reception.
We are not the cheapest option in London. We are the option for clients who have decided — through experience or through research — that getting it right once is less expensive and less disruptive than fixing it later.
We work across London and the surrounding areas. For a full list of the areas we cover, see our areas page.
Over more than twenty years of installing surfaces across London, Gero kept arriving at the same moment. A bathroom that had taken days to get right — every substrate prepared correctly, every tile laid flat and aligned, every joint considered as part of the surface — and then the accessories going on the wall. The chrome flush plate above the toilet. The towel rail screwed through the tile. The toilet brush housing placed on the floor. The waste bin beside the vanity.
None of them were wrong. They were all functional objects solving real problems. But every one of them announced itself on the surface that had just been built to be seamless. They belonged to a different era of bathroom design — one where accessories were always surface-mounted because nothing else existed. The question Gero kept asking was why nothing else existed.
Integra Prima was the answer to that question. Founded by Gero, Integra Prima is a collection of seven concealed tile-integrated bathroom accessories — flush buttons, extractor fan covers, towel hooks, toilet paper holders, brush holders, bin systems, and access panels — that install within the wall during the tiling stage and are invisible once the tile is laid. Gero brings two decades of real installation knowledge to every dimension of the product, what a tiler needs the housing to do, where each product sits on the wall, and what the finished surface has to look like when the job is done.
Integra Prima is not Tile in Progress’s side project. It is where Tile in Progress’s experience went when it had nowhere else to go.
Nothing on the surface. Nothing in the way.
Every product installs within the wall before the tile goes on. The face sits completely flush with the surrounding tile once the installation is complete. No visible fixings, no silicone joints that discolour over time, no surface-mounted hardware interrupting the tile. The wall is what it was always supposed to be.
The dimensions, the fixing method, the face plate tolerances, and the specification requirements of every Integra Prima product were shaped by someone who lays tile for a living. The result is a product that installs correctly, on programme, without modification — because every decision made during development came from the installation side of the job, not from a drawing board.
Every Integra Prima product carries a 10-year consumer warranty. It reflects the standard the products are built to and the confidence that comes from knowing what a surface needs in order to hold for the long term.
If you are planning a tiling project — a bathroom renovation, a kitchen, a period hallway, an exterior terrace, or a commercial space — we would like to hear from you. We take on a limited number of projects at any one time so that every job receives the care it requires.
Get in touch. Tell us about the project. We will ask the right questions, give you an honest assessment of what it needs, and tell you clearly whether Tile in Progress is the right fit. If it is, we will give you a complete picture of how we work from the first site visit through to the day we hand the keys back. No ambiguity. No surprises.
The clients who trust us with their surfaces are not looking for a tiler who will simply get it done. They are looking for someone who cares whether it is right. That is the only kind of work we do.
Tile in Progress · London · Company No. 14185738
INTEGRA Prima by Tile in Progress · Nothing on the surface. Nothing in the way.
