Bathroom Corner Shower

When either space is at a premium in a small bathroom or you wish to have both a dedicated bathtub and a shower in a larger lavatory space, a bathroom corner shower may be the ideal solution. There are a dizzying number of different corner showers on the market to choose from but, if you determine at the start what kind of basic style you want and can afford, you can quickly begin to trim the selection of corner baths to a manageable level of complexity.

The biggest decisions you need to make is whether you want a fully enclosed one-piece bathroom corner shower or if you would rather install a shower pan only and create a custom enclosure with tile or stone. As the name implies, a one-piece shower consists of both the shower pan and two wall sections that, in concert with some type of opening glass door, creates a waterproof enclosure.

One-piece shower enclosures can come as either a single molded piece or in three separate sections that are joined on site. Single-piece showers are easier to install, but you need to be sure that you can get it into your existing bathroom space without having to knock a hole in the wall.

Three-piece units consist of the shower pan and two wall sections that are caulked together during the installation process to create a waterproof seal. If your bathroom door is not wide enough to fit a single-piece shower through, a three-piece shower may be your only alternative.

A more elegant, but much more expensive, option is to install a shower pan only and then custom tile the walls around it. The main advantage to this is that, if the tile work is of professional quality, the finished shower can be absolutely gorgeous. Disadvantages include a much higher price tag and the risk that the final job can look amateurish if the tile work is not up to snuff.

The walls on which the tile is mounted must also be of a much higher quality than ones that are to be covered by a built-in surround. Typically, the original plaster or drywall must be removed down to the studs, and replaced with cement hardboard in order to produce a quality tile job, greatly adding to the installation cost.

Resolving this first basic decision will start you comfortably on the path to creating an elegant and space-efficient bathroom through the use of a bathroom corner shower.