I am remodeling my master bathroom and having some issues with the bathtub fitting into the alcove. It's a standard 60x30 bathtub, and there's about an inch of play in between the walls for the length of the tub:
I've pushed the tub all the way up against one wall, the wall opposite the shower fixtures. The wall opposite the shower fixtures is not plumb, so the back end of the tub is touching the stud at the corner of the wall, but the front of the tub is not touching the wall:
On this wall, where the tub is touching the stud, I only need to use one 1/4" furring strip to get my backer board over the tub flange, but on the front of the tub where the tub is not touching the stud, I would need to build the wall out with at least one or two more furring strips. Doing this would build the wall up too high here though, and make it so the hardie to drywall transition would be too uneven to work with (estimate 3/4"+ height difference with the finished tile on it), as well as having my finished tile possibly stick out higher than my door molding:
The last 2 pictures are showing how the wall would be IF I fixed the issue of the wall opposite the shower not being plumb by furring out one side of the wall more. Obviously that's not a good solution. My only real idea here is to pull the hardie down off the walls (I have hardie up on the back shower wall only right now), pull the tub out again, and cut a notch into the only stud the tub is touching on the wall opposite the shower so that I can recess the tub into the wall, so that all edges of the tub are touching a stud.
This idea would solve my issue with THIS wall but would create another issue on the wall with the shower fixtures. Even before thinking about recessing the tub into the stud, this wall already would need to be built out with 2 1/4" furring strips and a sheet of 1/2 inch hardie just to be EVEN with the tub flange. Recessing the wall back into the stud would be that I'd need to build that wall up with at least one extra 1/2 hardie board, so that'd be 2 furring strips and 3 total boards of 1/2 hardie to clear the tub flange. Further compounding the problem is the position of the shower valve/handle. It would need to come out more to the interior of the tub (rather than pushed back into the wall) to clear all those extra boards of hardie, and that might be pushing the limits of how far that thing is meant to move. Even if I could get it to move in the position I want, since it moved so much, I bet the angle of the tub spout would be way off now.
These pictures show the wall opposite the shower and how much the wall needs to be built up already, BEFORE thinking about recessing the tub into the stud:
So I don't know what to do at this point. I'm stuck and can't move forward with my project until I figure this issue out. Suggestions?
I've pushed the tub all the way up against one wall, the wall opposite the shower fixtures. The wall opposite the shower fixtures is not plumb, so the back end of the tub is touching the stud at the corner of the wall, but the front of the tub is not touching the wall:
On this wall, where the tub is touching the stud, I only need to use one 1/4" furring strip to get my backer board over the tub flange, but on the front of the tub where the tub is not touching the stud, I would need to build the wall out with at least one or two more furring strips. Doing this would build the wall up too high here though, and make it so the hardie to drywall transition would be too uneven to work with (estimate 3/4"+ height difference with the finished tile on it), as well as having my finished tile possibly stick out higher than my door molding:
The last 2 pictures are showing how the wall would be IF I fixed the issue of the wall opposite the shower not being plumb by furring out one side of the wall more. Obviously that's not a good solution. My only real idea here is to pull the hardie down off the walls (I have hardie up on the back shower wall only right now), pull the tub out again, and cut a notch into the only stud the tub is touching on the wall opposite the shower so that I can recess the tub into the wall, so that all edges of the tub are touching a stud.
This idea would solve my issue with THIS wall but would create another issue on the wall with the shower fixtures. Even before thinking about recessing the tub into the stud, this wall already would need to be built out with 2 1/4" furring strips and a sheet of 1/2 inch hardie just to be EVEN with the tub flange. Recessing the wall back into the stud would be that I'd need to build that wall up with at least one extra 1/2 hardie board, so that'd be 2 furring strips and 3 total boards of 1/2 hardie to clear the tub flange. Further compounding the problem is the position of the shower valve/handle. It would need to come out more to the interior of the tub (rather than pushed back into the wall) to clear all those extra boards of hardie, and that might be pushing the limits of how far that thing is meant to move. Even if I could get it to move in the position I want, since it moved so much, I bet the angle of the tub spout would be way off now.
These pictures show the wall opposite the shower and how much the wall needs to be built up already, BEFORE thinking about recessing the tub into the stud:
So I don't know what to do at this point. I'm stuck and can't move forward with my project until I figure this issue out. Suggestions?