This is the second of a two-part custom tile shower renovation project description. If you’d like to get all the background, then just click back to this “How to Renovate Shower Waterproofing” post. This second post describes how to renovate a tile shower by installing the actual tile, grout, and finish fixtures.

You can renovate a tile shower in just three steps once the reframing, plumbing, and shower waterproofing is all done.

Step One: install the tile

The clients on this job wanted to make a tasteful homage to the late-80s vintage of the original shower (and the remaining large glass block wall). So they chose a unique aqua green mosaic for the shower floor and a dramatic accent tile wall to frame the shower controls:

It’s a great idea to make one dramatic tile accent wall in a large shower. This adds flair without being overwhelming. And it keeps costs low if your accent tile is expensive. However, you need to do extra design work to make an accent wall actually look good.

First, since the accent wall tile was a different size from the rest of the wall tile, making the corner joint where these two completely dissimilar tiles met look balanced and purposeful took quite a bit of layout planning. Also, the German-engineered plumbing trim needed a really tight tolerance. This required really close curve cuts around the plumbing cover plates:

Second, laying intricate mosaic tile on a non-flat shower floor without showing any seams is always a challenge. It was even more of a challenge for this particular job. The shower was very large and had a complex drainage slope necessitated by the jog in the glass block wall.

And third, there was that big ‘ol oversized niche to deal with. Shower niche openings always require careful advance planning for size and placement to avoid a haphazard looking finish.

Step Two: plan the niche

There are two niche styles to choose from (either very wide or very tall) for making a huge amount of shower storage space. These folks chose very tall, which meant a vertical niche space with inset tile shelving. We designed the shelf spacing to give FIVE linear feet of shower storage space:

Natural stone is a great choice for niche shelving, since it can be custom cut onsite. These folks chose limestone tile for the vertical niche shelving. The natural limestone added nice visual contrast with the solid white porcelain tile. And, limestone is a very soft tile that’s easy to cut and sand for nice beveled edge finishes:

Step Three: install the grout

Grouting is both the best and worst part of a custom tile shower install. It means that renovating your tile shower is almost done. But, on the downside, it’s a pretty gritty last step:

But the final custom showeriffic results were pretty cool and well worth the effort:

Especially compared to the “before” look — and not even considering the fact that the ‘before’ shower leaked like a sieve!

The “after” was a definite improvement, due in no small part to the clients’ excellent taste and style.

This is how you renovate a tile shower properly.