What is the best way to waterproof a shower? I am not sure, but I am sharing the one I chose and how I installed a shampoo niche.
What I knew is that I needed to waterproof a tile shower and I was terrified.
I can’t believe I just said those words out loud to you.
I mean, I have done it before, but I was really nervous this time!
I had two things to do: choose a waterproofing method and cut a niche into the wall.
I said it, cut part of the wall out.
And I was absolutely terrified.
You know why? Because I didn’t want to get either one of them wrong.
I suffer from ‘Fear of Failure’ sometimes.
Do you suffer from that, too?
I am usually pretty good about just throwing caution to the wind and ask “what is the worst that could happen?”
In this case? I could have water leakage or worse….mold.
There are so many different methods of waterproofing that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I went with the one I used on my last shower which is pretty much guaranteed to work.
It is harder than painting on a waterproofing seal, but totally right for me.
Because sometimes I like to do things the hard way.
I ordered this kit and saved a lot of money by ordering it all together. This ensures no water will seep behind the tile and create mold.
And I hate mold…EW, David.
More on that in Part Three!
With the kit I chose, I also ordered a prefabricated shower niche for shampoo made by the same company.
In hindsight I probably should have done this one instead because I have a teenage daughter and she comes with a lot of “shower stuff”.
To install it was actually very easy.
I placed the front of the niche towards the wall and traced around it.
Then I took my Dremel Mulit-Tool and cut the cement board along the lines of the traced niche. I was careful not to cut too deep and hit any possible water or electric lines hidden behind the wall.
Once the board was removed I saw that there was a stud right where my niche needed to go in the center of the wall. That was awesome. So I took my reciprocating saw and cut that portion out. (I knew that the framing was only for the drywall to attach to, so I wasn’t worried about cutting one little piece of stud out.)
I had to build out a couple of the studs with scrap 2×4 pieces so that my niche could have something to screw into. Then I added the niche and screwed it into place.
It was easy and I surprised myself. I actually surprise myself all the time.
When is the last time you surprised YOURSELF??
If you missed any part of this so far, you can catch up with the genesis of the build and the prep and planning part of this project.
Check out how I actually waterproofed it in Part Three coming soon. It was a mess and challenging fun!
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