Converting the Master Shower from Fiberglass to Tile

                 Before                                              After

 This was part one of a multi-stage master bathroom remodel. Tile in the bathroom always seems to make the space feel nicer. I also felt that taking the tile all the way up the wall will make this tight space feel a little less cramped. 

Step one- The demo:  Since the fiberglass is built into the drywall, I had to cut the drywall out to the sides and above the shower. This allowed me to get to the flange to pull out the nails. From there, I just used my saw to cut it into pieces in order to get it out. 

While I was in there, I noticed there was no insulation behind the fiberglass which definitely needed for our hot desert climate. In order to get a proper slope for the drain, I set the outer edges an inch higher than the middle drain. After the first layer of concrete is set, the rubber membrane and another layer of concrete is added. 

I decided to add a shower niche which I based the height on the costco sized shampoo bottles. 

While I agree that using hardiboard is preferred, I went with the greenboard drywall and then used a water-proofing membrane that is rolled on the surface. I went this route because I did not have to battle the mortared seams that seem to create a slightly more bumby surface that can show up in these smaller tiles. 

In order to get nice straight rows, I measured up from the floor approximately 2 tile rows and added a strip of wood. This will allow me to set my tile to get a nice straight line. I wanted to add some accent to the wall, so I left a 6" strip vertically. 

After all of the tile was laid, I took off the wood pieces and began to work downward on the last 2 rows. Cutting the penny tile is a bit more tedious so I decided to lay the floor tile first, then have the wall tile meet the penny tile. 

The shower glass cost about $450 and it was a little tricky because of the tight dimensions. The shower door had to be on the right because of the toilet, but because of angled ceiling, the glass could not follow the angle and still allow the door to open, this was the solution. 

Takaways: 

What I love about this project: I love how much more open the shower feels. This space is hard to work with, but I feel this was a definite upgrade for the space. Since the space is tight, we ended up buying some suction cup towel hooks and placed them outside the shower glass which ended up working well. 

What I would do differently: I love how clean the white tile looks, but keeping the white-grout white is hard. I would have used a light grey grout which would have made my accent wall a little more prominent as well. 

I was so focused on the niche, I forgot to include some form of bench or stool to make it easy for my wife to shave her legs. To solve this problem, we got a teak wood bench that we added; however, the teak wood seemed to get the tile dirty quicker. We thought about a suction cup footstep, but they would not work with the smaller tile seams.