CORY’S TILE & MARBLE (313) 220-2803
A mortar bed being floated across a curved commercial walkway beneath a glass dome.

Metro Detroit · since 1997

The bed under
the tile.

Cory’s Tile & Marble sets tile and stone, and still floats mortar beds by hand — the part of the job that decides whether everything above it is flat, and whether the shower actually drains.

Call (313) 220-2803 See the work
1997

Same name, same phone number, same man on the job since the year he started.

4

Of his sons on the crew at one time. He taught every one of them the trade.

1

Owner-operator. The person who quotes your job is the person who floats it.

Who you are calling

Cornel Diaconescu

He started Cory’s Tile & Marble in 1997 and has run it under the same name ever since. Tile, marble, showers, floors — and the mortar bed underneath, which is the thing most of the trade stopped doing.

Most showers now get a pre-formed foam pan and most floors get board. It is faster, and it works. A hand-floated bed is slower — but on a floor that is out of level, or a pan that has to drain to one particular spot, it is the only thing that gets it right. He has been doing it long enough that it is not a specialty, it is just how the job is done.

“He has been floating mud since 1997 — the year I was born.”

— Andrei Diaconescu, his oldest. Four of his sons worked for him at one time, and he taught all of them the trade. Andrei now sets tile on his beds under his own company, AD Enterprise — two businesses, same jobs. He floats the bed, I set the tile on it.

One of Cornel's sons kneeling on a mortar bed, running a hand float along its curved edge under a glass dome.
Floating the curve by handOne of his sons on a commercial walkway. Every foot of that edge was struck on knees with a float — there is no machine for this part.

What he does

Tile, marble, and the
bed underneath.

Signature

Hand-floated mud beds

Mortar beds floated and screeded flat, shower pans sloped to the drain, curbs built and wrapped. The work that gets buried the day it is finished.

Wet areas

Showers & wet rooms

Pans, slopes, waterproofing and membrane, built from the substrate up so the water goes where it is supposed to go.

Floors

Tile & marble floors

Tile and natural stone over a bed that is actually flat — which is what large-format and polished marble need and rarely get.

Comfort

Heated floors

Beds floated over radiant tube and lath, burying the heat without losing level.

Prep

Substrate & waterproofing

Levelling, membrane and uncoupling over what is already there. When this is wrong, nothing above it is right.

Scale

Commercial work

Beds floated across large commercial floors and walkways, not just residential bathrooms.

The work

You only ever see it
for one day.

A mud bed is invisible the moment tile goes on top of it. Every photograph here is his own work, caught in the only window where the thing you are actually paying for is visible.

A large floor mid-pour, screed rails set across it, half the bed struck flat and half still loose mud.
Floating a floorScreed rails set across the bay, the bed struck flat behind them and still loose in front. The only moment the work is visible at all.
A shower pan floated inside orange waterproof board and sloped toward a round drain.
Pan, sloped to the drainFloated inside waterproof board and pitched to the drain. Get it wrong and the shower looks finished and holds water.
Mortar going down over red radiant heating tube and wire lath, hand float resting on the bed.
Bed over radiant heatMud going down over heating tube and lath. The tube still showing is what the bed has to bury without losing level.
A wet-room floor floated over black waterproofing with a wrapped curb and two flush drains.
Wet room over membraneFloated over waterproofing, curb wrapped and lapped, two drains set flush — the whole assembly still readable before it disappears.
Red radiant heating loops stapled across a floor with kitchen cabinets already installed.
Before the mudRadiant loops run and stapled out, cabinets already set. This is the stage before the bed goes over it.
Mortar being spread and screeded over radiant tube, with a pile still to move.
Mid-placementMud spread and screeded over tube, with a pile still to move.
A bathroom floor with the mortar bed poured, cement board on the walls and a shower alcove beyond.
Bath floor, pouredBed poured with cement board up and the shower alcove beyond. The step at the edge shows how much height the bed is making up.
A finished mortar bed running flat down a hallway to an exterior door threshold.
Cured and struck flatTight to the threshold and the jamb. This is what the tile goes on, and what nobody ever sees again.
A large glazed conservatory with dark mullioned windows and the whole floor floated flat.
Whole-room floatA fully glazed room floated corner to corner in one go.
A floated walkway running between planters and mature palms beneath a glass atrium dome.
Commercial scaleA walkway bed run between planters under a glass dome. The same trowel work as a bathroom floor, several hundred times the area.
Black uncoupling membrane laid and rolled flat over a floor with cutting tools resting on it.
Uncoupling membraneMembrane laid and rolled where the assembly calls for it rather than a bed.

Get him on the phone

Talk to the man
doing the work.

(313) 220‑2803

Service area: metro Detroit and the surrounding communities — including Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Livonia, Canton, Taylor, Woodhaven, Novi, Farmington Hills, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Township, Milford and Rochester Hills.

Estimates are given by Cornel directly. There is no office, no call center and no salesman — the man who quotes the job is the man who shows up to do it.