Shower Framing

While pondering the drain situation I started work on framing out the stall.  Now, I could have made this a whole lot easier on myself by simply purchasing a ready made shower surround and plunking into the space.  But I have yet to find a fiberglass/plastic surround that appeals to me.  For this bath, my bath, I wanted to go with a real tile surround.....which means a whole lot more work!

I will continue to look at the various tub surrounds mostly because by the time I finish all the different layers and required work that goes into a tile surround, I'm going to be so over it that I'll want NOT to do it again and thus will need one for the guest bath (fodder for a future post no doubt!).

In the meantime, the soon to be tile shower pan itself is going to measure 30x60", essentially the same footprint as the original tub. Where it is proving to be a challenge as inferred in an earlier post, is working around the placement of the toilet.

Layout challenges....
Normal standards require a minimum of 12" of floor space between the toilet and any wall it's placed beside measured from the center of the floor drain.   The purpose is not only to provide comfort to the person sitting on the facility, but also to allow room for the tank and access to it.  The only way to make the shower larger was to encroach upon the toilet space but I didn't want to do crowd that space for obvious reasons.  It required some creativity. 

I pondered (yes again) how to go about accomplishing the goal while meeting some informal requirements I have in my head....

• I wanted to be able to see the far shower wall lending to a more spacious feel of the environment,
• I wanted to decorate the space with some tasteful (timeless, NOT trendy) tile work
• I want to see it whenever I'm in the bathroom. 
• I don't want someone walking in 20years from now and without a blink of the eye exclaiming in horror "2011!!" (remember those harvest gold bathrooms of the 70's??....the "travertine" of our time).

Options....
I could leave the shower stall completely open and use a straight curtain rod exactly like I encountered in the Florida hotel room but there's that claustrophobic thing again.  I could use a curved shower rod allowing more upper body space but then the curtain when closed...or even open, would crowd out the airspace above the toilet.  I could go with just a thin glass dividing wall.....but then my practical nature kicked in and said that would not be practical in the long run....I'd always be cleaning it (both sides) just to make it look good.  I ditched that idea pretty quickly.

An excellent compromise!
As always, with time it finally came to me;  Build a 30" wide, 60" tall divider wall between the shower and toilet, install a glass panel at the top so you can still look out (or in),  utilize the unused interior airspace inside the upper wall on the shower side for a shelf niche to hold the shower essentials while the lower portion on the toilet side serves as elbow or tank room.

This solution offers a modicum of shower privacy and keeps the water splash inside the stall while enabling additional toilet placement options. 

So that's what I did.....

I laid out the initial framing and set up some temporary uprights to validate my idea.

Turned this way, the tank can stand freely
inside the wall cavity

The toilet can even be angled slightly to provide
to provide elbow room on either side....or
turned 90 degrees to parallel the shower stall.

Very doable!  With that, I started framing it out. 

The framing will include a 30" walk in opening to the left of the toilet area which may or may not include sometype of door.  Getting pressure for a glass door!  ;-)  The curb will be four 2x4's deep.  In the far left corner in the pics below, because of the curve of the outside wall, to take advantage of what would otherwise be unused (wasted!) airspace, I framed out the wall to allow for a second niche.

The second niche will fit between the two
right side 2x4 upright frames.

But, before I can apply any permanence to my ideas, I have to finish dealing with the shower drain and then lay down the foundation for the shower floor, a sloping cement subfloor to the drain.