Shower start

Today Kevin had a break while waiting for material to dry in a bathroom he was working on down the road.  So he came over and laid the thin-set on the shower floor, the first step in building the shower pan.

The next steps are to build a curb (or threshold) and to lay a shower pan liner.  When my uncles Curt and Larry were here in May to help me with the bathroom, my uncle Curt lobbied for me to use Kerdi as a shower liner.  (http://www.ontariotile.com/kerdi-showerpan.html).   However Kevin is more comfortable using a shower pan liner and that is the way it will be done.

As you can see my shower drain is not in the center of the shower floor.  That is due to how the drains, pipes and studs are located under the floor.  Kevin will handle the shower floor slope accordingly.  All sides of the floor will be the same height so the slope in the corner to the closest to the drain will be greater than elsewhere, but according to Kevin, easily manageable.

I never noticed it before but the shower head and handle installed by my uncles are not centered on the wall.  When checking the planned tile placement Kevin started under the shower handle as he likes to start in the middle of the wall and work outward.  We found the shower head and handle to be 17 inches from the outside wall and 14 inches from the inside wall.  As I mentioned I hadn't noticed the head and handle were not centered,  I just hope that once the tiles are installed and there are lines on the wall that the off-centered aspect still won't really be noticeable.

I guess the off-centered aspect is another feature of the shower head and handle.  While I was soldering the water pipes in the crawl space, my uncles soldered the water pipes to the shower head and handle.  After they were done we discovered they had installed the shower control upside down.   The handle has to be attached to the top of the control unit and not the bottom.  The handle is supposed to turn from cold to hot.  The handle now turns from hot to cold.  So I will have to warn all guests that cold and hot are reversed.  I just don't have the desire to cut and remove the three water pipes going and coming from the control unit, removing the unit from the wall, attaching and re-soldering the three pipes in the correct position through the floor and up to the shower head and re-installing the unit into the wall.  So I will live with an upside down shower.

I also learned the tiles on the end walls didn't go as I had hoped.  The wall is a little over 31 inches wide.  The walls are the widest I could make them and still open the bathroom door completely.  The tiles are sold as 6 inches wide.  Add in the grout line between the tiles and I felt I could place five complete 6 inch tiles on the wall.  A quarter inch grout line between tiles and I would be able to set the tiles without cutting any tiles.  My uncle Curt felt I should make the wall a little shorter as I was risking cutting tiles and having a narrow line of tiles go up the wall.  I couldn't see how that could happen and made the narrow shower wall the widest I could.

We are going to have to cut tiles. Just like a 2 by 4 board is not really 2 inches by 4 inches, tiles are not their advertized size.  I learned the 6 inch tiles are actually 5 and 3/4 inch.   And Kevin prefers a narrower grout line, something closer to an 1/8 inch than a 1/4 inch.  A sixth tile will have to be cut.  How much it will be cut will be determined once we start.  If the shower head and handle were centered we would trim some off each of the two end tiles to make it look balanced, but since the head and handle are not centered we may only trim one tile.

Since the tiles were not 6 inches my calculations on how many tiles I needed were off and I had to get three more boxes.  Fortunately Lowes still had this style of tile in stock.

We were also able to buy some 12 inch (whatever the true size is) tiles in the same style. Discussing the tiles with Kevin we decided to change up the tiles for the bench and use 12 inch tiles on it.  We also are going to have several soap and shampoo dishes built into the wall and we will use 12 inch tiles on them.

Tammy got the idea of using our accent/border tile strips on the bench too.  That didn't turn out well as Lowes no longer had this style in stock and have discontinued carrying them.    We were able to find several similar colors and styles and may use them once the tiling begins.

Kevin will be back next week to work on the shower once he finishes the job he is currently working on.