Building a better tile shampoo shower niche - a how to guide

**Keithett** · 12-13-2012, 08:51 PM

John,

I've been reading up on how you create a shower niche and if I understand this correctly, you create an oversize waterproof niche opening so you have the ability to adjust the tile as necessary to match the surrounding tile. I'm going to be tiling a new shower next year and also want my tiled niche to match up exactly with the surrounding tile and like this approach. What I wanted to know is the best way to fill in the approximately 1" (plus or minus) gap behind the tile. Instead of filling this gap with thin set, would it be better to grout in a shim between the niche and the tile? If water behind the tile is a concern, I could make this shim out of a non-porous material.

**dlarrivee** · 12-13-2012, 09:33 PM

John that small shower room w/ the toilet in it, does water make it almost to the door or what?

**johnfrwhipple** · 12-15-2012, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Keithett

John,

I've been reading up on how you create a shower niche and if I understand this correctly, you create an oversize waterproof niche opening so you have the ability to adjust the tile as necessary to match the surrounding tile. I'm going to be tiling a new shower next year and also want my tiled niche to match up exactly with the surrounding tile and like this approach. What I wanted to know is the best way to fill in the approximately 1" (plus or minus) gap behind the tile. Instead of filling this gap with thin set, would it be better to grout in a shim between the niche and the tile? If water behind the tile is a concern, I could make this shim out of a non-porous material.

You can approach the tile instal a few ways.

One is you can use a thick bed thin-set like Ardex X32 or a regular thin-set and mortar mix combination. If you have some scrap tile you could install a double course of tile to build up space if your thin-set allows this.

@ DIARRIVEE - The water does not travel all the way to the door. Overspray from the body lands about 2.5' from the entry. The main shower head hits about 5 feet from the doorway.

**johnfrwhipple** · 12-29-2012, 07:27 AM

We tried something new on this project. We tried building a tile niche for toilet paper. Of course my buddy wanted the thing to have lights so we top lit it. The look is more subtle than the side lit niche we build in the shower and a mini version of Hallway Lighting systems we have built in the past with drywall.

Take a look.

The top tile does not go all the way to the back and is keep off a finger width.

JW

**johnfrwhipple** · 01-10-2013, 08:51 AM

The main shower niche is really taking shape.

Installed some 3/4" glass and back lit it for some more storage. This glass is keep off the face and is a perfect spot to store a soap dish out of the spray of the shower.

JW

**johnfrwhipple** · 01-12-2013, 07:33 AM

For this project I have been given full creative design. I have always thought that it would be fun to hide the shampoo bottles from view. We started the side shelf yesterday and have been working at narrowing the overall niche width. I love the look and the bonus shelf is great extra storage.

This shelf is tucked away out of sight because the wall tile in the shower hides them. Because the larger back lit shelf is not as deep as the total niche depth the overall shower niche allows for multiple sizes of bathing products to be stored.

I'm thinking this is going to be a huge hit with the lady of the house!

JW