Knucklez

here is a picture of the grout job completed. the bottom left panel looks shiny only because its a bit wet from the sponge.

next up.... FRAMELESS GLASS DOORS!

wish me luck

Knucklez

now the shower is finally taking shape! putting up the glass doors was not too bad. the hard part was putting on the metal frame straps that hold both side pieces. this was assembled on the floor.. it was hard because you have to lean both glass walls towards each other so you can get the strap in place. definitely takes two people!

the tiles being tumbled are not perfectly smooth like porcelain. the metal rail that runs up the side did not go on perfectly flat but it is a bit flexible so i screwed it in place. then, when i put the glass in, i found that you could extend it a bit so that made up the difference. great, no gap along the wall

Knucklez

the brass coupling at the top needs to be hidden. usually it is BEHIND the wall, but for me i didn't think of this until after the job was done... sheesh.. amature

my father and i came up with another solution that looks good (i hope). this was a 10$ can with lid from Home Sense. we cut a hole out of the top & bottom so the pipe would fit through it. then epoxy it to the tiles.

i still have to paint the walls and stuff, but that's about it.

oh, i should mention a side note about water pressure! when i first turned the shower on, i got just a drizzle... VERY disappointed!! i got all sorts of "advice" from home depot & rona.. which ranged from:
- no rain shower will ever have enough pressure
- temperature control valve has 3/8" inner bore, so even if you run 1" flex plumbing direct to the shower you'll still have low pressure
- there is such a thing as 'high flow' temperature control but they are illegal (i think?) in canada --> i.e. you have to buy it from ebay

in the end, it was just the areorator that was plugged. haha.. you experts know that you must flush the system for 2 minutes before you screw in the areorator. but that is not written in the book!!! so.. i found out the hard way. least it works great.

another tip... use painters green tape to make your silicon nice and sharp. i was a little frustrated at the time and didn't bother.. turned out OK, but still could have done it nicer if i were more patient.

Knucklez

now i need somewhere to store my soap.

got this 9' tall caddy from Linens & Things. was a bit expensive, but that's what gift certificates are for

so, this is it. final shower done. i really tried to make this a nice shower built to last 50 years... guess time will tell

final cost (from memory so might be wrong..):
wood for framing: $20
4" screws to reach wall studs: $5
bag of mortar to stabalize the base: $10
shower glass & base: $750
silicon: $4
kholer shower hardware: $250
shower caddy: $50
denshield board: $75
redgaurd water proofing: $70
tiles: $500
tile mortar: 2 * $30 = 60$
grout: $20
tools: $15

Total: $1850

skills learned during project = priceless

i have lots of left over water proofing so will come in handy with my next shower project

its a bit overkill.. but i always built (or try to build) to last 50 years.. when you do this stuff once you realize you never want to do it again! hahaha...

so... what do you think?

Demochick

This is an excellent thread..thanks I got a lot of info from it, I am currently adding a shower in my bathroom and I am to the point of where you started. Ill keep you updated on mine as well..but it looks GREAT. One question though....I love how you made the section "pop" out what did you use around the edges?

Knucklez

great question!

first, the reason it is popped out in the middle of the shower tile is because the water valve was too far away from the backerboard. i dry fit some tiles and it was still too far away.. so i thought.. crap... i'm in trouble.

so then decided to simply screw on more denshield. it is 6" wide i believe and extends to where i thought the glass door frame would run (you don't want to pop out the door framing!). i chose 6" because it was wide enough to cover the water valve + valve cover, and would not require me to cut any tiles (i have 2x2 tiles).

so i just screwed on some denshield "strips" right over top the denshield first layer. now, the top and bottom of this denshield is essentially exposed gypsum.. which is bad. so i made sure to put a lot of redgaurd water proofing along the top and bottem edge.

then when it was all done i made sure to put caulking all along the top and bottom of this edge.

in retrospect, i wish i had made some 12"x12" recessed boxes in the upper portion of the walls to hold things like soap and shampoo (instead of the shower caddy). maybe next time..

keep in mind i'm not a pro or anything. so take my advice and methods with some serious grains of salt

Knucklez

Demochick

We ran into that same dang problem today, as far as the valve not fitting in the wall...so we moved on..lol..im hoping to find some help...regarding that.. O and being a woman...i remembered the built in caddy..lol

Knucklez

good luck with your project.


ps.. on the pop out section, i meant to say THOSE tiles were 1x2 (not 2x2 like the rest of the wall). so as long as the width is an integer number then i wouldn't have to cut any of these tiles.


you may also want to consider tiling all the way to the ceiling. my wife chose not to because of estedics.. but i think it is better idea to do so. buy hey, what do i know?

Knucklez

baksdak

Wow, awesome write up! Nice step by step along with pics. Final product looks really good!!

BleachCola

great pics and nice job

njchan

great job ... tiles look amazing ... especially the ones around the midpoint of the shower. is that a rainfall showerhead?

looks great! thanks for the thread.

Knucklez

yes that is a kholer rain shower head. the water pressure is decent, its a rain shower, not a thunderstorm.

some people on other message boards said that this shower should be served with 3/4" pipe to get very high water pressure and lots of flow, but what they fail to realize is that the valve has an inside restrictor of 3/8" size.. so it really doesn't matter how much water supply you bring to the room.

and to get a bigger size valve is note code in most locations.

oh, and i forgot to mention that tiles are sealed with tilelab sealant. they will need to be resealed once a year.

Knucklez

kimberland30

Knucklez, great job! I would love to have that shower in our bathroom. Eventually we'll be taking out the old prefabbed shower and tile in the area - but we have 3 walls instead of two. I also love the glass doors.

Will have to show my husband this to let him know what I'm talking about. We might be able to do some sort of recessed shelves in the shower though (I hope). A good friend of ours does tile for a living and has offered to 'help' (meaning, we'll watch while he does it).

ACobra289

Great job on the shower! And thanks for the detailed posts. Just curious, did you redguard the whole thing or just the seems?

Bill M.

AndyH

Wow what a project, looks awsome!!