The shower without a drain

This weekend Oceana and I came up for another working weekend.  Last weekend we got the floor tile installed in the new bathroom.  This weekend we focused on getting the Corian installed.  I was sure glad to get all of those sheets of corian out of my van.  They had been riding around with me all week!

Quick trip to Sarasota

Sunday morning we made a run to Sarasota.  I found a woodworking machine that I’d been looking for there so we made the trip early Sunday and were back by lunch.  Lake Byrd to Sarasota is a much nicer drive then West Palm Beach to Sarasota.  On the way back we swung through Sebring to pick up some supplies at Lowe’s.  We made it back and had a quick lunch and then it was time to get to work.

Starting with the floor

First thing up was the floor of the shower.  The floor will be a clean modern style once installed but there’s a fair bit of work involved to give it that clean appearance.  Since nothing is square in the bathroom, we opted to template the shower floor instead of just measuring.  Using the template, I cut out the main piece for the shower floor.  With the piece cut out, I laid out for the removable portion of the floor and cut it out from the center of the first piece.  With this style floor, there will be part of the floor that’s glued in place and part of the floor that’s removable for accessing the drain.

Flange for the removable floor

I checked the fit of the floor in the shower and it was nearly perfect.  A few quick adjustments and it was all set.  To hold the removable piece of the floor in place, I needed to install a flange under the glued in part of the floor.  This would let both parts of the floor sit perfectly flush.  To do this I cut a few strips of Corian, glued them together, and then created drain channels in the edge.  These drain channels would line up with similar drain channels in the bottom of the shower floor which will let water flow through the floor and into the drain. However, these drain channels are not visible when the floor is in place which helps maintain the clean appearance.

Lots of clamps

With the floor and the flange ready, I glued them together.  This required lots and lots of spring clamps.  Once the glue set, I cleaned them up and put the removable floor in place and centered it in the opening with a few shims.  With the panel centered, I flipped the whole thing upside down and then glued in some alignment blocks to the bottom of the removable floor.  These blocks make sure the panel goes back in the exact same spot every time and in doing so, they keep the gap around the removable panel uniform.

Floor is in!

Time to install the floor!  This was mildly uneventful.  A bit of silicone and it was in.  Good.  Next up was templating for the back wall.  This piece was going to be tricky.  It’s too big to get through the door in one piece, so we’ll have to glue it together in place.  This is called field seaming.  Field seams are much more difficult to do well than doing a seam in a shop setting. 

What’s a mirror cut?

Using the template, we cut out the two pieces that were going to make up the back wall.  The trick to doing a good field seam is in making a mirrored cut on the mating pieces.  Using a router and a straight cutting bit, I spaced the two panels apart just enough that the router bit would just cut a little bit off of each edge of the two panels.  It’s called a mirror cut because since you’re cutting both sides at the same time, the cuts are the mirror image of each other.  After mirror cutting the pieces, I trimmed them to final size. 

One piece at a time

We started with the large piece and with a little finagling we were able to get it into the bathroom (barely) and stood up in place.  It fit well so we applied the silicone and stuck it to the wall.  Then we brought in the smaller panel.  We did a dry fit and were happy with the fit so we applied the silicone to the back and the Corian glue to the edge.  Using the suction cup, we fit the piece in place and then wedged a few shims along the side to close up the glue joint.  Success.  Enough for the day.

Monday morning curb

Monday morning we started fabricating the shower curb.  The curb is made up of 3 pieces glued together.  Once the pieces were cut to size, I glued them up using a bunch of spring clamps.  While the glue was setting up, I went inside and started sanding out the field seam.  The more I sanded, the more the seam disappeared.  It’s so well hidden that I can’t even tell where the glue joint is anymore.  Perfect.  By this point the glue was dry on the curb so I finished sanding and shaping it.

Time for the side walls

With the curb shaped, we glued it in place.  With the curb in place, we can now template for the side walls.  We started with the side opposite the shower head.  Using the template, we cut the piece to size and sanded and polished it.  We finagled it in through the door and test fit it.  Perfect fit.  We applied silicone to the back and glued the panel in place. 

The final pieces

The last piece was the wall panel on the shower head side.  We templated and repeated the process for this panel.  We fit it and it fit perfect. So we glued it in place and then stood back and marveled at the beautiful new shower.  The removable floor panel hadn’t been sanded and polished yet so Oceana took that outside to get it sanded while I worked on the plumbing.  I got the shower valve trim and the shower head installed.  It looks great.  I still haven’t connected the pex lines so the shower doesn’t work quite yet but at least it’s lookin’ good! The only thing lacking is the final caulking of the seams. Just a quick note – the pictures make the shower appear square. It’s not. It’s a rectangle – roughly 30″x43″. The square appearance is just some of the distortion from the wide angle lens.

Thanks for following along

Another productive weekend.  We’re getting real close to having a fully functional brand new bathroom.  I’m looking forward to seeing it finished.  As always, thanks for following along on our journey!