Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A really nice shower

Last week the final finishing touches were put on our master bathroom shower. We had asked for a "bumpout" to be installed into the wall, which caused a delay while waiting for the special tile bullnose pieces in our chosen color to be ordered. No worries though - we've just been going upstairs to shower (and the upstairs bathrooom\shower is certainly no slouch either - far too nice for teenaged kids! :).

I've been waiting for final completion before posting the results. Finally then, here's the finished product (sorry for the reflection of the vanity light fixture, please ignore that):

I think the mural looks really nice through the glass. Our tile artist Paul Lewing came out last weekend and took some pictures of the final product; maybe we'll end up on his web site.

I remember long ago staring at the house plans and wondering "did we make the shower big enough?". Hah - that turned out not to be an issue. This is a huge shower with plenty of room to move around during the daily ablutions. And once you're done showering there is more than enough room to towel off while still in the shower, thus reducing the drip factor on the floor.

I was a bit iffy at the thought of having the shower walls and door made from glass, but now that they're in, I'm really glad. The panes are 3/8" thick - I think the door alone is more than a hundred pounds by itself. The hardware to hang them is correspondingly beefy. One nice feature is that the door opens in both directions, i.e. inwards and outwards. There is no special gaskets or rubber flanges around the door - instead, it is measured to have a very tight clearance so as to minimize leaks, i.e. about 1/8-1/4" on the sides and bottom of the door. So far leakage has not been a problem, and not having gaskets makes the cleaning job easier for sure.

Our builder Paul (or his plumbing consultant, I can't remember which) was the one who recommended we put in dual shower head fixtures. This was a good idea - two streams from different sides makes for a comfy shower.

In summary, even though we don't even have a week's worth of showers under our belts, we are happy with the results.