Roman Tub into a walk in shower

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VWK

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Hello everybody! I'm about ready to tackle my master bathroom but it's a 70's nightmare. I have a roman tub/shower that I would like to transform into a walk in shower. I was quoted $5,000 to rise up the floor, take care of the plumbing and tile. I want to move out, in about a year and rent this property, so I'm not ready to invest that much money into it. I'm ready to invest my time and effort though by doing it myself. My husband and I are DIYers but we've never done a shower before. Is that too ambitious of a project?
I've attached a picture of the shower and a rendering I made, of what I want it to look like.
I want to remove the bench and replace it with shelves by the toilet for extra storage. I would like to rise up the floor and plumbing (we will call a plumber for the drain and shower fixtures) and tile the back wall and floor with marble looking tiles and the 2 other walls with white tiles. The rendering is not accurate regarding the location of the shower fixtures (we will leave them where they currently are) and regarding the side walls of the shower because I use a nonprofessional software and I can't modify everything as I'd like to, but you get the general idea.
Any ideas, tips, info you can give me are more than welcome, especially for the rising of the shower floor (not a lot of info online) or the building of the shelves. Where do I start? What do you fill the hole with (sand and concrete or just concrete)? Do I need to build a box around the plumbing? Any protective barrier? Thank you in advance.

IMG_6827.jpg
New shower.jpg
 

Tuttles Revenge

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I have no way to guage your skills but as long as you're diligent with details and understand the products you're working with, then you should be able to tackle this. It will take 3x as long as a competent proffesional... But you know this already.

Some tips that I see in your rendering you will want to consider. Your glass door is heavy and has a lot of leverage on it. It needs a very sturdy wall to be anchored into. Something more substantial than shelving. The shelving is a good use of space tho. the bottom shelf will be hard to use, but maybe if its not too deep, it becomves a cubby for extra tp? You will need 15" clear from center to the wall or glass either side of your toilet. Your shower outlets should be on the side wall not pointing into the door so that spray is kept inside the shower if the door is open. Consider the swing of your entry. It currently opens against the cabinet but should probably open to the wall by the toilet. If its tight, they make a pocket that your door handle recesses into so the door can fully open. The shower drain should be an easy conversion from the tub drain and since its already sunken, you can do a semi curbless shower where there is a small step down into the shower like 1 inch.. ensuring no water getting out.
 

VWK

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Thank you for your response, I appreciate it. You are bringing up a good point about the shower door. I need to figure out exactly how I'm going to build the shelves. I was thinking building a frame with 2x4s and using cement boards and waterproofing or kerdi boards inside the shower. Is that how it is usually done? But indeed, that might not be sturdy enough for the glass door. Maybe just a fixed glass panel (no door) connected to the right wall would be a better idea? No swing issue that way, with the toilet right there. I plan on keeping the shower fixtures on the right wall where they currently are.
 

Tuttles Revenge

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The tile setter I work with the most uses a Wedi system. Cement covered foam panels and presloped pans etc. A fixed panel is a good option for a shower as long as the design mitigates splashing out and you don't have to go too far in to turn on the shower control.
 

VWK

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I was thinking using the Kerdi boards and presloped pan. Is the wedi system better or cheaper?
 

VWK

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I'm trying to figure out the different steps to fill the tub and bring the floor up to the same level as my bathroom floor.

1- Remove the existing tiles on my shower floor
2- Dig around the drain to access it and be able to cut the existing drain
3- Add an extending pipe up to where my new floor will be
4- Fill the hole with sand (especially around the extending pipe) and gravel- do I need to build a wood box or something around that pipe?
5- Add a leveled layer of concrete but how thick of a layer?
6- Install a new Kerdi drain
7- Install a pre sloped kerdi shower pan
8- Tile

Am I missing something?
 

Jadnashua

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Both Wediboard and Kerdiboard are good products. The installation techniques are different. The adhesive used with Wedi can get expensive, but it works. You could probably use KerdiFix in a similar manner, but again, it's not inexpensive and thinset is much less so even after adding in the tape for the seams.

The funnel on the Kerdi drain normally expects a 5" diameter hole around it, so, at least up at the surface and down a bit, you'd have to leave a gap around the pipe. Below that, doesn't matter. Be VERY careful about getting the riser pipe perfectly plumb, as with the large diameter of the drain assembly, any error will be amplified.

You don't really need to remove all of the tile in the existing tub well...only enough to get down to the drain assembly so you can add the coupler and extend the riser.

If the base of the shower pan isn't an exact fit for one of the preformed pans, you might find it less expensive and just as functional, to make the pan with deck mud, then cover it with Kerdi. If you did that, the top layer of deck mud is essentially a lean mix of Portland cement and sand in a 1:5 ratio. It packs like wet beach sand, and you can carve it to the proper shape as long as you finish up before it starts to set. Cheap and adaptable exactly to your shape, and it can also be leveled and account for minor off-center drain, if that's a potential issue. WIth a preformed pan, your drain is pretty critically placed...make your own, you've got more latitude.

I'd run this by the folks at www.johnbridge.com where they specialize in tiling things and showers.
 
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