Back to the Shower (Day 634)

I've tired of landscaping, so I'm leaving it to Bill when he arrives around Labor Day. However, it would be nice to have a second shower by then, so the press is on to get the guest bathroom shower completed. We have all the Wedi board (pan, panels and drain), so it was time to trim out the stud walls to the correct size (width and length) and make everything square. Square is the word for tiling; anything but 90° sucks, and you'll pay for it in the long run.

Yesterday I attacked the walls. Shims here & there, additional support, modified the size of the inset (for body products), and got the pan to fit. The problem with this shower is that its 3' x 4' and the drain pipe isn't centered. So the solution was to buy the standard 3' x 5' Wedi pan and cut it down to fit. No biggie, its high-density foam with a fiber mesh and cement coating. Cuts easily on the table saw. Whipped it down and the pipe is about 1 in off center, front to back. So down I went into the crawl space with my handy ABS pipe saw. Off came the trap, which is easy enough to reinstall.

After I put the pan in place with thinset mortar, I'll hook up the drain assemble to the ABS drain pipe (2") and the bottom will be done. From there, the Wedi panels go up, setting on a rabbit in the pan and butt jointed to one another up the walls. This is the same process as we used on the master bath shower (see Day 545), so no reason to dwell over it. The difference with this shower is that its smaller but has 600 pieces of tile. We're using 6"x 8" field tile, then three rows of 2"x 4" across the stall at eye level and in the inset. The floor is 11" x 11" pre-mounted flat pebbles (variegated) and the ceiling is more 6"x 8" tile. Add in a bunch of 3"x 6" bull nose for all the corners, and we're talking a sh--load of tile to be cut, placed, and grouted.

Started the tiling on the weekend (Aug. 13) and got most of the back wall and alcove finished. Worked out pretty good, but it took a lot of measuring to make everything come out balanced. Luckily the 2x4 tile works on multiples of the 6x8 field tile. I suspect I'll be cutting and tiling for at least another week. Most importantly, I need to get the door side jambs tiled so we have a final width measurement for the door. The door company won't order until this measurement is finalized, and then the door takes about 2 weeks to make, ship to Sequim and have mounted. This means we might shower with a curtain for a few days while we have visitors in early September. By then, the rear end of a shovel might be pretty appealing.