After months of looking at concrete walls, wall studs, or concrete backer board-covered walls, we finally have final finish walls for our basement bathroom shower. Maggie and I spent a lot of time trying to decide on what to do for this shower. The original shower was a stall; two of the walls consisted of thin plastic that were attached to the exterior concrete block wall and a stud wall. This shower was not very sturdy, and the walls had started to detach from the concrete and stud walls. We never used this shower as it looked like it would leak all over the place.
We first looked at installing a sturdier, self-contained shower stall. We were worried that we would not be able to fit the stall through the bathroom door. The space was narrow, and if we built another wall to contain the third side of the stall, it would have created a narrow area that would have been of little use. We decided to go with a shower pan and shower curtain that would allow access from two sides. The question was then what we would do for the two walls. I was worried about tile; one of the walls is a basement block wall, and even with studs and backer board I was worried the wall would move with the seasons and crack tile. Maggie suggested using corrugated metal panels, but I was concerned they would eventually rust. One day while walking through the Do-It Center, we came across a product called Dumawall. These are large (about 24 inch by 14 inch) vinyl tiles. They interlock like luxury vinyl flooring, and get glued to the walls with construction adhesive. Maggie liked their clean look, and I liked the non-organic and waterproof composition that would inhibit mold. I was not completely sold on the construction adhesive installation, but I felt that if they fell off the wall, they would be easy to remove and we could then try something else. We bought several packs of Dumawall tile and trim pieces 6 months before we needed them, and put them in a corner of the basement to stabilize to our conditions.
The product went up as easy as advertised. The first weekend I just glued in a corner trim piece cut to size. I then drew up a plan and made some layout adjustments to confirm I would not have a skinny piece along a side or at the top. The tiles were then installed over two mornings on the July 4th holiday weekend. The tiles were cut with a table saw and miter saw, leaving clean edges. It only took three tiles per row along the long wall and two tiles per row on the short wall, so progress was quick. Because the tiles were being used for a shower surround, the instructions required the use of caulk along each joint. Before I installed a tile, I ran a bead of caulk along the finger joint of an existing tile, put adhesive on the back of the next tile, and joined the two together. I used a j-trim piece to finish off the exposed edge. While I could have used this trim for the other edges, I preferred ending the tile at the wall, floor and ceiling. I'll apply a bead of caulk to these edges to finish the waterproofing and cover the edges of the tiles.
I like how the large size of the tile limits joints and makes for a more unified look. The cutting generated a lot of vinyl 'sawdust', which killed my small shop vac during clean-up, but there were no other casualties. We are waiting on the shower curtain rod, but hopefully we can take a test shower in a couple of weeks.
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