Shower Tile Installation Complete!

Note 12/3/21: All is well with us! I’ve just reached the point of completely burning out DIY projects, and needing little time to get away and refresh. I intended it to last only two or three days, but three days turned into a week, which turned into two weeks. 😃 But we’re okay, and I hope to get it back this weekend. ❤️

I started to think I wouldn’t see this day until 2022, but I finally finished installing all the tiles in the master bathroom shower last night. It still needs to be cleaned and grouted / caulked, but that should be a relatively quick project compared to actual tiling.

Earlier this week, I still had to tile the shower niche…

… As well as the narrow wall of the shower (i.e., the wall where the bathtub will sit on the other side).

Well, last night, both areas were finished, which means all the shower tiles were installed.

Here’s a look at how I make niche tiles…

That’s not quite what I planned, but I tried about ten different tile layouts with three different tiles used individually in different layouts, as well as combinations of each other (the shower wall tile , the glass penny round accent tile, and the shower. floor tile), and I just wasn’t happy with any of them. Of all the options, this simple vertical wall tile application is the one I like the most because I feel that the vertical arrangement is a placement of small vertical tiles around the bottom of the walls. Of course, all of this can be less noticeable if it’s all grouted, so everything will look more subtle than it does now with dark (shady) grout lines showing.

And here is the interior wall with all its tiles…

That wall took a long time because I hadn’t yet installed the vertical tiles underneath, and each of them had to be measured and cut individually. That is, I can no longer just cut a batch of tile at 4.5 inches because the floor is sloped. And since I’m not a tile pro, I’m a bit slow on special cuts. But when I finished the bottom row, the rest was more simple and straightforward.

Unfortunately, that’s the wall with primary water control that requires an 8-inch back plate that I somehow lost. So I had to order another, and the shower wasn’t officially finished until that arrived. But since that control is on the side wall, we can use the shower even without the plate installed.

When I finished that, I was about to empty my mortar bucket and clean everything, and I realized I had enough mortar to finish the floor in the toilet area. It’s been like this for a long time now…

I’ve been dreading for a while now because the unfinished toilet entrance area is even narrower than the back. And it’s just not small. More than an inch apart.

So instead of just installing full, bad sheets of 2 x 2 tiles, I cut the sheets into the edges of the tiles (6 tiles on each edge), and fixed the installing the edges so that the grout lines gradually extend towards the back wall.

I was surprised and very pleased that that plan seemed so good, and I am confident that once it is grouted, no one will be able to tell that there will be anything different in the grout lines from front to back. Honestly, I can never say what it is.

That’s why I’m so excited to be able to install that tile as well. Aside from any unforeseen circumstances, I had to get all of them (the entire shower and this floor) cleaned, grouted, and have the shower fixtures installed this week. I can feel such a sense of accomplishment to finally be able to do these things !!