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Can you tell I’m just a mom DIYer and not an actual pro? My biggest concern was my work not being structurally sound and the shower leaking, ha, ha! I’ve done lots of tile, but this is my first shower, and I want this thing watertight!

Of course aesthetics are always a priority, too!

We moved into this house and noticed within a couple of months that the bathtub in the kids bathroom was leaking. We hadn’t noticed the giant stain on the garage ceiling at our home inspection, so we assumed it was recent. Turns out it wasn’t! We had just started finishing the basement, so we just forbade anyone from using that bathroom until we could get to it. It took us over a year! Seriously!

Once I decided to jump in, I decided to replace the bathtub with a shower, since there are four other bathtubs in the house and this bathroom was primarily used by my older kids, who prefer to shower.

Then, because this was my first shower and I didn’t exactly feel confident, I researched the bejeebers out of shower building. It turns out there are about a million methods. The one I chose, because it seemed the simplest and most effective (hooray for preformed shower pans and not having to lug buckets of concrete up my brand new hardwood stairs!), was the Schluter-Kerdi membrane system. I was SO grateful for these online tutorials from Kerdi.

Even with the tutorials I still felt a little intimidated, but I knew the cost to hire a professional was beyond our meager budget, so I proceeded. The gist of the system is that you are completely waterproofing your shower by covering every square inch of it with this thick, waterproof membrane and thoroughly sealing all the joints. It is brilliant that the membrane has fleece on one side of it, which gets embedded into thinset as you smooth the top of the membrane with a mudding knife as you work. It creates a very strong mechanical bond to your walls.

I damaged some of the drywall pulling off tiles from the surround, and damaged it further pulling out the tub. I also had to install vertical 2 x 4’s where I wanted to hang the heavy, glass shower doors, and my husband changed the plumbing configuration in the plumbing wall, so my drywall in that area was really messed up. The OSB subfloor and floor joists and wall framing had also been water damaged and needed to be replaced. I was able to use leftover drywall from the basement to cobble together a basic substrate to adhere the kerdi membrane to, and I was thrilled that I didn’t have to mud my joints or make it look nice! That would have been impossible! I did mesh tape the seams, though.

I made sure to angle any vertical/horizontal junctures, such as the windowsill and the two niches, slightly downward so as to encourage the flow of water away from the joints. I used marble thresholds for the sills of the niches and the window sill. I also used a premade Kerdi niche, which fit perfectly between two studs and was easy to work with. You can see it here.

Here I am deciding the tile layout. I purchased these beautiful tiles from Home Depot, but I DON’T recommend them! They shipped to our local HD, where I picked them up, more than half broken. Seriously! I hadn’t ordered enough to compensate for the broken tiles, so I placed another order, and they arrived a slightly different color, more greenish-gray, and again more than half broken. I just tried to find a link for them and couldn’t, so maybe HD has discontinued them.

There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to tile layouts, you just want to figure out what will be the most aesthetically pleasing.

Even though I ended up wasting lots of broken tiles, I’m still glad I chose them. Aren’t they beautiful? I used a 1/8″ tile spacer for tiny grout lines, and I used Fusion Pro (from Home Depot) platinum silver grout because I wanted them to blend in rather than stand out. 

My favorite grout is Fusion Pro. I buy mine at Home Depot. The reason I recommend it to everyone (and I am not being compensated for this in any way) is that it is completely stain proof! You never have to seal it! This is my third house to use it in, on myriad projects in each house, and it really, honestly, is stain proof. I used Bright White in this bathroom and on my kitchen backsplash. I can just easily wipe mustard and soy sauce and really anything off of my backsplash, even if it has been left sitting. It costs a bit more, but it also inhibits mold growth and is very crack resistant, despite being just has hard as cement-type grouts. I don’t know how they make it, but it is GOOD STUFF!

Schluter specifies which type (modified and non-modified) mortar to use during which portions of the installation. I just followed their instruction perfectly since this was my first time using it and I really didn’t want any mishaps. Your product will come with very explicit installation instructions, and the tutorials linked above are fantastic, too.

I purchased a complete kit, sized for my space at Amazon, because it was considerably less expensive than buying all of the individual components at our local tile store, or at Home Depot. I bought the floor membrane separately, along with two extra rolls of kerdi band for the floor joints and walls. Just make sure you get the right type for your existing pipes in your house, whether PVC or ABS. These photos are links to the exact products I purchased on Amazon.

 

 

 

This is the niche I used. It made the job SO much easier that it was VERY worth the $100 it cost! I bought it from Amazon because they had the best price.

 

 

 

I also ‘Schluter’d’ under the entire floor and a couple of inches up the wall, clear to the doorway. You can see the orange band up the wall beyond the tile. I adhered it to the wall with thinset and then just installed the baseboard over it. Hardwood adjoins the tile at the threshold of this bathroom, so I angled the tile up slightly at the doorway to contain water. That bathroom is as waterproof as a shallow swimming pool, ha, ha!  I hope it survives my kids! So far, so good, and it’s been a year since I finished it. The Schluter system (Schluter and Kerdi are the same company and type of system) is supposed to flex a little so tile and grout won’t crack. It is also entirely waterproof.

I’m really hoping I will never have to replace another subfloor!

I will be starting our master bathroom soon, and I’ll make sure to better document the process. I am going to use the Schluter system again, because it was so simple. I am excited to get started!