Shower Stall Tile

We are redoing our bathroom. It's a small bathroom in the master, with no tub, just a shower stall.

What tile would you guys recommend for a shower? I really like the look of the tan-ish travertine, but I hear it's not the best for shower as it needs to be sealed.

I stayed for a few days in a home that had some kind of marble on the shower walls. The owner provided a squeegee. After shutting the water off, I was asked to simply "squeegee down" the glass front and door, and all the marble. Only took a couple of minutes, and kept the marble and glass looking nice and clean.

glenn514

motobrewer said:

We are redoing our bathroom. It's a small bathroom in the master, with no tub, just a shower stall.

What tile would you guys recommend for a shower? I really like the look of the tan-ish travertine, but I hear it's not the best for shower as it needs to be sealed.

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Small travertine tiles are great. All stone has to be sealed as does all non-epoxy grout. Most sealers these days are 10-15 year sealers. As Glenn said, just squeegee down after every use and make sure you have a good exhaust fan to remove the humidity in a timely manner.

thanks for the reply. nice shower, did you install yourself? it's really similar to the look we're after. Here's the model we liked

Yep, did it myself. Made the bullnose tiles myself on the outside edging and there is a shelf on the inside wall not pictured... couple more pics.

And Kerdi is really the way to go on the waterproofing membrane, IMO.

wow, beautiful work. our stall isn't nearly that big, roughly 37 x 43. we are thinking about lengthening the 43 dimension; we can't go anywhere on the 37 dimension.

my wife doesn't want the "rain" showerhead. i was kinda disappointed, lol.

yes, I was planning on the kerdi as well. seems like the right way to do it. what did you do about the pan? I was thinking about just utilizing the whole "schulster" system, including pan and curbing.

Just remodeled our bathroom also. Took out three closets to make it bigger and put a walk in shower where the tub was. Used subway tiles on the shower walls. Love it!

motobrewer said:

wow, beautiful work. our stall isn't nearly that big, roughly 37 x 43. we are thinking about lengthening the 43 dimension; we can't go anywhere on the 37 dimension.

my wife doesn't want the "rain" showerhead. i was kinda disappointed, lol.

yes, I was planning on the kerdi as well. seems like the right way to do it. what did you do about the pan? I was thinking about just utilizing the whole "schulster" system, including pan and curbing.

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The rain showerhead is the ****. Don't know why anyone wouldn't want one...

I did a mud-base for the floor because it was an odd dimension vs the standard Schluter bases (plus I wanted a little extra slope for drainage) and the curb was also built.

But, if you're doing all that stuff for the first time, I would definitely recommend using their "out of the box" system. I can't say enough positive things about their products.

AnOldUR said:

Just remodeled our bathroom also. Took out three closets to make it bigger and put a walk in shower where the tub was. Used subway tiles on the shower walls. Love it!

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As long as that second picture isn't the finished product!

So, you're living up to your name and making an old fogie handicapped accessible shower?

Looks nice, BTW.

Randar said:

The rain showerhead is the ****. Don't know why anyone wouldn't want one...

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that's what i keep telling her. maybe i'll just install it and see what she says. easier to ask for forgiveness....

Randar said:

I did a mud-base for the floor because it was an odd dimension vs the standard Schluter bases (plus I wanted a little extra slope for drainage) and the curb was also built.

But, if you're doing all that stuff for the first time, I would definitely recommend using their "out of the box" system. I can't say enough positive things about their products.

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yeah, ours is a crazy shape too. if we do extend the length, it'll be 36 x ~55 pan. I'll have to cut the Schluter base to fit, but that might be better then to try to trowel a graded shower pan for the first time . altho they do make those plastic guides that stay in the pan, those are neat too.

Randar said:

So, you're living up to your name and making an old fogie handicapped accessible shower?

Looks nice, BTW.

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Hey, I won't be 60 til next year.

Old gun case for a medicine cabinet.
Old desk for a vanity.
Old scrap of marble for the counter top.
Old coat rack for a towel hanger.
Old mail room case for a magazine rack.

Yeah, there's a theme . . .

motobrewer said:

. . . my wife doesn't want the "rain" showerhead. i was kinda disappointed, lol.

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The ladies don't always want to get the hair wet. The ticket was to give mine that hand held, adjustable faucet.

Oh, and if you can pull it off, radiant heat in the floor. Really nice!

did you get away with a 1/2" line for water supply with all those fixtures?

Yeah, they're low volume heads, but still work well.


edit:
Or were you talking to Randar?

We do use both heads at the same time without pressure problems.
Old, but not dead. :cross:

AnOldUR said:

The ladies don't always want to get the hair wet. The ticket was to give mine that hand held, adjustable faucet.

Oh, and if you can pull it off, radiant heat in the floor. Really nice!

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Amen to that. Love ours for about 7-8 months a year... in Wisconsin maybe 9 months a year?

motobrewer said:

did you get away with a 1/2" line for water supply with all those fixtures?

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Those Kohler regulators and valves have 3/4" ports because they are designed to handle multiple fixtures, but each of the actual fixtures is 1/2" line. Each fixture is 2.5 gpm. (total 7.5 gpm if all are on)

cool stuff.

yeah I've been looking at the floor heating systems. they aren't terrible especially since our bathroom would only require ~30 sq ft heating.

motobrewer said:

cool stuff.

yeah I've been looking at the floor heating systems. they aren't terrible especially since our bathroom would only require ~30 sq ft heating.

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NuHeat pre-sized mats are the way to go IMO. You can find them online pretty cheap and throw it down under the Ditra. Adds one small step during install. Just be sure to check the mats before and after you lay them down using a multimeter to get the same resistance value... don't want to lay tile to find out they are DOA. And tile is pretty good at dissipating heat. No need to have the mats spread right to the edge of the wall, under the vanity, etc.

Randar said:

NuHeat pre-sized mats are the way to go IMO.

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I went with hot water. They sell pre-routed plates that configure to your floor size and you lay a thick walled plastic tubing into the slots. I had a plumber do it, but it looked pretty easy. The expensive part was running a dedicated zone to it.

hot water! interesting. i heard of that used in commercial settings but not really residential. do you have a big tank or hot water on demand system?

No, we have hot water baseboard heat through out the house from an old oil furnace that provides our hot tap water also. We had the bathroom radiator removed and the radiant added there. The entire bathroom floor was done while it was torn up. The floor tiles do a really good job of distributing the heat. Unfortunately, it's an older home and the bathroom was on the same heating zone as a couple of bedrooms, so a new zone had to be added. Here's the only picture I could find of the floor before the tile was installed. There are pre-grooved sheets. Some have the end radius and others have the straight runs. The plumber cut them up and put them together like a puzzle to get them to line up so he could zig-zag the tubing through out the bathroom.

motobrewer said:

hot water! interesting. i heard of that used in commercial settings but not really residential. do you have a big tank or hot water on demand system?

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See, AnOldUR had the infrastructure in place to add water-based subfloor heating. Otherwise, I would not recommend it as a retrofit into a small sq footage. My parents had it built into their home in 1989. Pretty rare residential use in those days. Closed system with a small boiler and several valves and distribution loops each on their own thermostat (a rough dial with no real temp markings).

On such a small sq footage as yours, you can get away with a small mat or 2 ideally placed and it will be relatively inexpensive without adding any height to the floor itself (<1/8")

AnOldUR said:

No, we have hot water baseboard heat

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ohh, duh, right, that makes more sense, lol. i forget about HW heating.

Randar said:

On such a small sq footage as yours, you can get away with a small mat or 2 ideally placed and it will be relatively inexpensive without adding any height to the floor itself (<1/8")

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yeah, I currently have a duct going into the bathroom, it does a pretty good job considering it's a pretty small bathroom. shouldn't need much cover. hopefully I can find a small-ish thermostat, i really don't want to hang a giant touchscreen for 30 sqft!

motobrewer said:

yeah, I currently have a duct going into the bathroom, it does a pretty good job considering it's a pretty small bathroom. shouldn't need much cover. hopefully I can find a small-ish thermostat, i really don't want to hang a giant touchscreen for 30 sqft!

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This is where I purchased mine:

http://www.warmyourfloor.com/shop-by-brand/nuheat.html?gclid=CITHkfXF6rECFYLb4AodK0oAmA

Get standard sized mat(s) and a thermostat...

Randar said:

Yep, did it myself. Made the bullnose tiles myself on the outside edging and there is a shelf on the inside wall not pictured... couple more pics.

And Kerdi is really the way to go on the waterproofing membrane, IMO.

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Randar, I noticed you didn't tile your ceiling in the stall. What did you use? cement board? did you put kerdi membrane on it?

we aren't having a false ceiling, so the shower stall ceiling and the main bath ceiling are continuous. we were wondering what to do.

also, where did you get your shower door?

motobrewer said:

Randar, I noticed you didn't tile your ceiling in the stall. What did you use? cement board? did you put kerdi membrane on it?

we aren't having a false ceiling, so the shower stall ceiling and the main bath ceiling are continuous. we were wondering what to do.

also, where did you get your shower door?

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I've built a couple of showers. I use cement board up to about 7 feet, which is where I stopped my tile. No false ceiling and the ceiling is pretty far up there so no worries in mine. In the first bathroom I did, I painted the lower ceiling and it started flaking after a while, so I think you should tile if it's low enough to touch.

I also used cement board over the curb, which I build from 2x4's. I poured my first curb, but that was a pain in the ass.

I think I used that exact same travertine tile as Randar for my 2nd shower floor. It's really nice.

I used standard rubber pan liner all around.

I used to have a swinging glass door, but we had a terrible accident once where my 7 year old was coming out of it, swung it open, and it shattered. He had glass sticking out of his back all over the place. Sliders now for me.

what did you use for ceiling material? cement board?

i'm going to use the schluter-kerdi system, it comes with a curb.

motobrewer said:

what did you use for ceiling material? cement board?

i'm going to use the schluter-kerdi system, it comes with a curb.

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If you're talking to me, I don't know what that is. I just built stuff from cement board, readymix cement, 2/4's tile, etc.

Ceiling in the first shower was cement board. In case of hurricane, all 5 of use would pile into that shower.

2nd shower was just greenboard. The ceiling is at least 10 feet, maybe more.

You could always do something like this