Two Girls, One Shower Reno

The before shot - your standard builder's grade bathroom.

Girl #1, the master plumber, is in the tub about to remove the doors.

Ready to demo the tub.

That's me - girl #2 and originator of this harebrained plan... also chief budgeting officer and mastermind of the design and tile work. (Selfies are allowed on Imgur if you're wearing a dust mask and wielding a power tool, right?)

After the tub was removed. No going back now!

Two or three hours of cutting, pulling & kicking (yes, kicking) later. Also, SO. MUCH. DUST.

Surprise #1: Raising the drain

[Disclaimer: this is likely only a surprise if you've never done this before... like me.] Because the shower/tub insert drained at the front, but I wanted the new shower to drain in the middle, that meant the drain had to be extended. Since the drain has to slope in order to properly move water out of the house, the subfloor had to be raised in order to accommodate that slope. To move the drain to the middle (roughly 2.5 ft from its original location) & accommodate the new drain assembly that was taller than the old, we had to raise the subfloor 3 inches. We ripped 2x4s to the proper height and secured them to the existing joists and then covered with 3/4" OSB.

Raising the valve

Shower/tub inserts have much lower fixtures than traditional showers, so the plumbing had to be raised to move the valve to a comfortable height for use with a shower trim kit.

Surprise #2: Dealing with a vent

The builder cut a corner and ran a vent up through the subfloor instead of through the stud wall (seen here after the subfloor had been raised). Since the fiberglass tub insert had a recess there, it didn't interfere with the old tub, but it meant we'd either have to move the vent or build around it for the new shower.

The Solution

The vent couldn't be removed & moving it into the wall was a little outside our areas of expertise, so the only option was to build around it. Ergo, a corner bench was added to the shower plan. This pic also shows the framework in place for pouring the pre-pitch as well as how the curb was built.

Pour The Pre-Pitch Slope

We mixed wayyyy to much deck mud for this part & it took a few minutes to get the hang of screeding concrete, but after a little trial & error it turned out nicely.

Shower Pan Liner

Securing the PVC shower pan liner to the 2x6's installed between the studs to form a solid frame for the shower pan. The framework for the shower pan is in place (Quick Pitch by Mark E. Industries), but I was just measuring at that point. It doesn't actually go in until later.

Finishing the bench

I covered the bench with 3/4" OSB (sloping forward to allow water to drain), running the shower pan liner up the front. I would later cover it in CBU & waterproof the whole thing with Redgard.

CBU & Redgard

I forgot to take in progress pics of the vapor barrier & CBU going up... but it's really the least exciting part, so it's probably better in your imagination anyway. I applied Redgard to the bench and niche areas since they're most prone to water intrusion. Since I'd had to buy a whole gallon, I also applied Redgard to the seams in the CUB, though from what I can tell, that step was probably overkill.

Shower Pan

Once the walls were in, I used the Quick Pitch kit to pour the floor & finished the curb.

Beginning to Tile

It was finally time to start tiling. I was on a bit of a budget, so I opted to go with neutral 12x12" tiles that cost about 50 cents a piece for the bulk of the walls and dress it up by splurging on some accent tiles and a river rock floor.

Getting Closer

Did I mention neither of us had ever actually cut tile before? And this was an upstairs shower. That translated into roughly 1.2 million trips up & down the stairs to the garage & more broken tiles than I care to admit to.

Finishing Up

I thought the floor would be easy since using river rock wouldn't involve any significant cutting, and it didn't need to be perfectly aligned. Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as to call it "easy." Turns out, sheets of river rock aren't even close to being uniform so I had to go through and pull out all the tall ones or else they'd end up poking my feet every morning for as long as I live in this house... which by the way, will be for FOREVER now that I invested days of blood, sweat and tears in this shower.

Finished Walls - Ready to Grout

The brown pieces are bullnose pieces so there aren't any exposed edges and the accent around the middle is a glass & travertine mosaic.

Fixtures Installed

I used oil rubbed bronze fixtures and a frameless glass shower door. I also sealed the grout on the shower floor so it would drain better and the grout wouldn't hold water.

Finished Product

Super pumped with how it turned out. It's been a full eight months since I finished this (obviously I've spent all of my free time showering since then & I'm just getting around to posting this... sorry I'm not sorry.), and even though I'm so not a morning person, I still get that "yeah... I did this. and it's awesome." rush when I get in the shower every day before work.

Another Shot... Because why not?

If for some reason you're super interested in renovating a shower, I actually detailed this process in a blog post, so if you need more details and pictures, visit http://www.projectjudson.com/shower-renovation/.