We bought a house about 3 years ago knowing we wanted to upgrade the master bathroom (among other things) and we finally have gotten around to getting it going. I took a week off from work to get this thing kickstarted. As we all know, it's been a slower process than I'd have liked. Included in this project is the walk-in closet that's off the bathroom.

Part 1 - Demolition

We figured out the corner shower had a small leak pretty soon after we moved in. I thought it was maybe the old cracking caulk and some damaged grout, so I had re-caulked and patched up the grout. No dice as we still noticed wet floor grout outside the shower after almost every shower. The corner tub was a jetted tub that spewed all sorts of nasty stuff out when we tested it, plus the tub was so deep, it took an insane amount of water to fill it. We at least had a new vanity from when we bought the house. The old vanity had so much water damage, it was essentially unusable so we got a credit from the sellers to get our current vanity.

Pre-demo view


Shower door and glass down


Last large project like this was pre-kid, now it has a 9-year old involved


Tub surround and shower bench out


Shower tile out


Old fiberglass shower pan out - confirmed the water had to have been leaking under the pan given the roots creeping onto the floor


Floor tile mostly gone - thankfully the tile install wasn't the best and the tile came up extremely easily


Ended up cutting the old tub into a couple of pieces to make it easier to get it out


Tub out and at this point, much of the demo was done

Awesome. This will be a popular thread!

What are your plans? Is that whole wall gonna be add shower now? Big changes to your floor plan?

Looking good!

That's pretty crazy with the roots like that.

Why does the concrete in that same picture look like it has grout lines? Or is that tile that was under the pan??

bam02 said:

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Awesome. This will be a popular thread!

What are your plans? Is that whole wall gonna be add shower now? Big changes to your floor plan?

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Not much change in the whole layout. Shower will still be in the same spot. I'll get some additional pictures up later, but some plumbing issues somewhat limited our design decisions, with both the shower and the tub. We had thought about possibly leaving the previous tub area alone and not replacing the tub (we never use a bathtub), but just couldn't come up with what else we'd put in that pretty big area.

txag2008 said:

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That's pretty crazy with the roots like that.

Why does the concrete in that same picture look like it has grout lines? Or is that tile that was under the pan??

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Mortar under the fiberglass shower pan. Didn't know that's how those fiberglass pans are set when they get installed. It came up with minimal work.

The roots didn't surprise me. We live in the desert and have a mature ash tree probably 30 feet off the back wall of our house behind the master bathroom. Those things just know how to find any and all water sources.

Very interested to see where you go from here. Our master bath has a nearly identical setup, plumbing and all down to the shower control lever.

We have been debating switching from an unusable Jacuzzis tub (leak in motor, to replace costs nearly 1,800 per jacuzzi company, also requires partial demo from shower to access motor) to just ripping old tub out and replacing with soaking tub.

I thought these types of renovations started on a Thursday night and were finished Sunday? OP, what is the intended timeline here?

GrimesCoAg95 said:

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I thought these types of renovations started on a Thursday night and were finished Sunday? OP, what is the intended timeline here?

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That's how the first kid's bathroom I did went. The Thursday was in August and the Sunday was in March.

rme said:

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GrimesCoAg95 said:

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I thought these types of renovations started on a Thursday night and were finished Sunday? OP, what is the intended timeline here?

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That's how the first kid's bathroom I did went. The Thursday was in August and the Sunday was in March.

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Hey OP,

You ok? You said you took off all week. Can us sitting at our desks get an update?

GrimesCoAg95 said:

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Hey OP,

You ok? You said you took off all week. Can us sitting at our desks get an update?

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Sorry, wasn't 100% clear on that. I'm back at work as well unfortunately. I took off the 1st week of August. I'll hopefully get an update with pics tonight.

Design decisions

Not wanting to move things too much and cause additional work, the plan has been to keep the corner shower in the same location. We wanted to expand the size to make it a little bigger than the previous shower size. Before we started demo, we had decided on making both glass sides extend all the way down to the floor from whatever height we decided on. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that wasn't going to be possible.

As the pictures below show, the plumbing for the old tub was brought up directly through the foundation in the middle of the floor. We had a plumber come out to see if they could be moved, and the short answer was no. The long answer was likely when the house was built, they ran the plumbing from the hot water tank underneath the foundation and brought it up through the foundation, then turned it back down to route it to any other location that needed water supply. The 2nd picture is in the vanity location, and you can sort of see the plumbing coming up through the foundation as well.





Starting the shower rebuild

Now that we figured out the first idea for the shower was a no-go because of the plumbing, we decided to build a half wall that would cover the tub plumbing and just end up getting the shower glass to set on the top of that wall. And the tub fixture would end up coming out of that half wall.

We decided to go with Schluter for the shower system. They have a fantastic product and it's been quite easy to put together. Plus, they have loads of instructional videos on shower installation. And doesn't require the use of cement board, which is a plus in my mind.

1st piece of sheetrock up - 2 side by side pre-formed Schluter niches.


More sheetrock work - you can see the plumbing coming up through the slab very well in this pic.


Drain set up - we needed to have the drain moved about 4 inches to the left from the existing drain. Schluter has a horizontal drain that just required us to connect the existing drain with the Schluter drain with a 90 degree PVC piece.


Starting to dry-fit some pieces together. Once we had the drain piece set, we had to fill in the existing drain hole with Quickrete.


More to come, kids are home and chaos is ensuing!

Continuing the shower rebuild

With the shower drain all set, now we could continue with the footprint of the shower.

Shower tray, curb, and half wall pretty much in their final locations (dry-fit in this pic). We also raised up the height of the shower fixture so I won't have to squat down to rinse my hair out anymore. This is the 2nd time we've had to raise a shower head like this.


Schluter waterproof membrane going up


Membrane almost fully up with tray, curb, and half wall set. We cut the shower curb down about 2 inches as it was just too tall for our liking in its original height. The tray and curb were all very easy to cut down to the correct size. We used a multitool, circular saw, or just a simple razor blade to cut them down.


With all the membrane up and curb in place, plus the half wall built, it was time to tile. First thing is we put in the shower floor tile. The Schluter trays are already pre-sloped, so there's not much to worry about with getting the correct slope. I just had to spot-check during the installation process.


Quick detour into the master closet. Not a very exciting change. Below is before and after painting the walls. I also built 2 additional shelves to increase the number of shelves on the back wall storage unit. We put our shoes on there but didn't need nearly as much height. Hard to see it, but I also added a shelf across the top of the build in shelf to give us a bit more storage along the back wall.

Nice work. Shower floor looks great!

Looking great! Anxious to see where this leads.

Good stuff

Needing to get the bathroom at least semi-functional (ie toilet and sinks), we had to turn our attention to getting flooring started so we could re-install the toilet and vanity.

We found some really nice 8"x48" wood-grain ceramic tile that we decided on. Definitely takes much more time to get each piece laid down, but obviously covers quite a bit of territory with each tile.

We also had to do some dry fitting of the new bath tub that will go to the left of the shower. Just like with the shower, we had to fill the area with quikrete before we could get the tile started.

We ended up moving the trap almost all the way back to the 45 degree curve.


Ready to go for tiling


Tile going in






Toilet area



New light prep for the vanity. Not that we were surprised, but the existing light fixture had no J-box behind it - just ran the cable straight out the wall. Since we were switching from a single fixture to 2 fixtures above the 2 sinks, we took out the big area of sheetrock to make it easier to run new cable for the fixtures.


Toilet back in - we went ahead and grouted this area before the rest of the floor because we needed to get the toilet re-installed and thankfully there was a natural break in the grout lines.


Vanity back in place


New Mirrors installed


Minus the mirrors, this is essentially where we're currently at. Bathtub is not hooked up yet, just resting in place for now.


Next major goal is to get the tile finished and the remaining floor grouted. Then onto the shower most likely.

Looking good! Impressive project!

Hey OP, way to go! It is looking very good.

That looks great!

What is the plan for under the glass block? Are you tiling up the wall or floating and painting that area?

Going to tile all 3 sides of the tub surround up to the bottom of the glass block windows. It'll be the same time as the shower.

This looks really good. One thing that you might want to consider is replacing the door on the medicine cabinet and the ones in the toilet area with ones that match the vanity doors. I realize you just painted them, and you did a great job. It is just that they style is very different from the vanity. I would still go with overlay doors, but I would take pictures of them and call Evans Custom Doors in Brenham. You can probably buy those 4 doors for less than $200 since you have paint grade shaker with a simple cove frame.

Quick question OP: Did this project start on Aug 15 when the initial post was made?

Just interested in the prelim schedule from start to finish and where you actually are in the process.

Knowing me, I would plan this out to take 4 weeks and it end up taking 4 months - or more.

I was looking at the pictures again, and I have to comment on the quality of work on the drywall patch. That patch for the lights looks great.

Thanks for the compliment. I was really impressed with how it came out. My drywall patching skills have come a long way over the years (unfortunately more practice than I would have liked!)

Also, thanks for the door recommendation. Will they ship their doors? We don't live in state. Hadn't even thought about matching the door styles.

AggieRob93 said:

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Quick question OP: Did this project start on Aug 15 when the initial post was made?

Just interested in the prelim schedule from start to finish and where you actually are in the process.

Knowing me, I would plan this out to take 4 weeks and it end up taking 4 months - or more.

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I've stopped planning any kind of timeframe for large projects, because it never ends up accurate with life! We've got a puzzle board that I made my wife for a Christmas present that I planned on attaching folding legs to....that was 4 years ago!

The demo started in early July and did a good bit of the initial demo on weekends. I took the first week of August off and my parents came into town to help out, which is when the bulk of the work got done.

I'm hopeful for a shower by Christmas! Lol!

I have used Evan's for similar projects.

Just a couple weeks ago they sent me two cabinet doors and delivered to SA like two days after I paid. I was expecting a month but I guess they pushed my small order through

They will ship. I am not sure of current pricing, but here is the best I know.

They charge a per door price based on materials and style up to a certain sq/ft per door. There is then a charge per foot. They then charge for the hinge holes and the hinges.

Example:
Door: 24
prep and hinges: 12

Total 36 plus shipping per door

Hey OP,

Get to work then show us some updates. Just kidding, but how is is going?

No progress the last couple of weeks. We were out of town last weekend and the weekend before I worked my side gig Sat/Sun. Hoping to get some tiling done this weekend.

Is your side gig remodeling?

Haha, not quite. I'm way too slow at remodeling. No one would put up with my pace. To be fair, my wife drives a lot of that. She's always been good about reminding me to make sure and take my time because that's what makes work look professional as opposed to DIY that was done way too fast for one's ability. Our remodels wouldn't look nearly as good if it was just up to me.

Update from last weekend's work

Mostly a picture dump. Only was able to get about 3/4 of a day work done due to other scheduled stuff. Spent a morning doing some big tile laying (with some help from our daughter). Then the afternoon I spent cutting the remaining pieces for the rest of the floor. Some tricky and tedious cuts at the threshold to the bedroom that definitely took multiple small cuts to make sure I didn't cut too much off at a time. Last pic shows all the tile in place, still a chunk are just dry fit.