MY SHOWER DOOR BROKE! . . . . DIY TO THE RESCUE?

So I'm taking a shower the other day, but when I tried to step out of the shower, the glass door split apart from the frame, thus wedging me inside the shower.  Help!

Had my partner not been there to open the door from the outside, I would have had to open a can of whoop-a _ _ on my shower door just to get out!  You cannot imagine how much yucky stuff comes out when the rubber gasket that keeps the glass inside the aluminum channel comes loose.  I did not want to repair that door!  I did not want to touch that door ever again!

So what was I going to do?  Go to work and deal with the problem later.

Last year, I had gotten a quote from Bathfitters to enlarge my miniscule shower area from 33"x33" to a scant increase to 33"x48." Would you believe $6,600!  Not worth it!  33"x33" is very little room to move around in, even for just one person, but with two people . . . well, it's just a little too cozy!  The glass door is only about 21" wide so it's tough to get in and out.  Thankfully the glass is clear or it would be a very claustrophobic experience!

Last night, I removed the door, brought a shower curtain and shower rod so we could use the shower until the fix was complete.  But what would the fix be?

I had looked at the portable/ standalone units that have lots of jets throughout the unit.

But my space is too small, unless I wanted to infringe on the toilet room that shares a wall with the shower. Stealing from the toilet room would make it impossible to keep the door to the toilet room which is already small because it is on a diagonal wall.  Losing the door to the toilet was not a comforting thought. "Nuff said.

Any increase in the shower foot print would require a new shower pan and that's a big expense because, according to Bathfitters, there is no standard pan that would fit my small space.  So what was I going to do?

I had thought of building a bump-out from the 3" step up to the shower back to the edge of the narrow wall next to the toilet room (see the bottom right corner of the above picture).  The bump out would be made from wood, slightly angled down from the front edge toward the shower pane so that if any water got on it, it would slide down into the pan. The wooden structure would be topped by green board then Kanika-style tiles and grout. My idea would have a new glass door installed at the edge of this bump out, making the new shower essentially about 48" deep x 33" wide, with no new pan.  I would make and install tiles for the narrow wall on the left of the shower (center of the above picture) and along the right side of the shower.  OK, construction experts . . . my idea would almost certainly NOT be according to code (not that I know what code is . . .).  And, if the tile on the bump out was ever wet (would that happen in a shower??? LOL), then we might slip as we stepped into the shower.  Bad plan.

My smartypants boyfriend came up with a cool idea.  He postulated that we could leave the current 3'x3' shower pan as is, as well as the current 3" tall white step into the shower (as shown on the right near bottom side of the picture above).  But I could add Kanika-style tiles on top of the vinyl linoleum, from the edge of the narrow wall in the center of the above pix to the right side of the picture.  If I added tile on top of the existing beige-colored tile, it would give an aura of continuity.  Forget a door altogether!  The shower space would seem so open.  However, if too much water ended up hitting the extended tile floor, I could always add a 12" x 72" glass wall along the right side of the shower where the current glass panel still is.  And . . . if I put three clear glass blocks on the narrow wall at left, light from the toilet room could bathe the shower in natural light.  Yeah baby!

I put together an e-mail to my brother, a general contractor/carpenter, to talk these ideas over, but I think/hope smartypants is right because I could do it myself on the cheap.

But how much tiling do I really want to do?  After totally gutting and rebuilding the majority of the kitchen in five weeks from November to December 2009 (kitchen remodel blog), we learned that my little tract home is REALLY well made!  Darn it!  Removing the tile from the kitchen walls and counters destroyed the wall board underneath, even though I was as careful as I could be in removing it.  I really did not want to remove all of the old 4"x4" tiles in my shower, replace the green board, and retile the whole space.  But I DID want to create some exotic Kanika tiles for the shower like I did for the kitchen.

Today I spent time experimenting with making new tiles, using different color combinations.  The existing shower tile is kind of beige and off-white fake marble-effect.  I did not want the new tiles to be too dark because I wanted a bright open-feeling space.  I like red and orange and yellow.  But I also like the idea of having forest and water colors.  What's a girl to do?  I made both. All of the tiles are bordered with an amber-colored glaze (which looks reddish in the bottom picture but should fire to a lightish brown and will bring continuity to both sets of colors).  For those of you who don't know about clay glazes, what you see is not necessarily what you get after they are fired to 1900-2100 degrees.

I thought it would be fun to have different sizes of tiles (4x4, 2x2, 3x6, 12x12) and maybe intersperse them with some glass pieces and some of my swirls (and maybe a goddess or two!)

These test tiles are in the kiln right now so tomorrow we'll see how interesting the tiles are and whether I like the colors.  I can't wait to see them!  Stay tuned!