Master Bathroom Stall Shower

With the roof all ready for the "wet season," the next most urgent project was the leaky stall shower in the master bathroom. This was not something that I was looking forward to, but it had to be tackled before we could move on to the more enjoyable projects.

The bathroom -  and a few other parts of the house, unfortunately - have been victim to an over enthusiastic amateur tile installer. While the choice of patterns and colors is not one I would have made (not without a gun to my head, anyway), what we have is mostly functional and therefore here to stay for the time being.

The problem with the shower was one of installation. The full length tile at the shower stall and at the floor was okay, apart from a few elementary errors with the layout, but the tile at the plinth had been installed in what is best described as a U-shape. In other words, not flat or regularly sloped as is standard practice, but sloping inwards such that a trough is created along the entire plinth. The end result is that water running off the shower door pools in the trough at the plinth...before seeping through to the basement. Less than ideal, let's put it that way.

As with several of the preceding posts, I don't have many before photos, mainly due to being in such a goddamn rush to get stuff done. I do have one photo of the plinth which I took to the tile store at the start of the project.

Another reason for the lack of photos is how messy/dusty this project was. OMG! After I cut off the top row of tiles with a diamond encrusted cutting wheel (we call it "the scheming wheel of death for a reason), I found damaged cement board underneath, so that was pulled out too.

The timber framing around which the plinth was actually constructed was very well secured, but was sloped in the opposite to ideal direction! I actually ended up correcting this with a hammer and chisel. The next photo is a ways into the project. I've got the timber frame sorted out and I've installed a rubber membrane over the framing...and cleaned up a LOT of dust.

Fitted and installed the first pieces of cement board with the correct fasteners...

All joints were tapped...

I put a layer of thin-set over the cement board, working plenty of mortar into the taped joints. I then let it cure for 24 hours before installing a second layer of cement board on top to compensate for the reduced height of the framing (plus more tape and more thin-set). It came out like this:

I got some eight inch square tiles from All Natural Stone in Berkeley which were complimentary to what we already had, and I cut them into suitable sized pieces with my wet saw and installed them on top of the cement board. The tile adhesive was slightly too viscous, so I had to wedge the tiles with a piece of plywood to stop them sliding off the plinth.

The replacement tiles were grouted and the grout was sealed.

Re-installing the glass panel enclosure and the door, and getting it all lined up and making the door swing correctly is something I never want to have go through again...ever!