Tahoe Donner Bath to Shower Conversion

The project began with floor protection and dust containment running from the front entry through to the bathroom. The tub, surround, vanity, mirror, and toilet were removed, and the original grab bar positions were measured and documented before any framing was disturbed so they could be reinstalled in the exact same locations the homeowner had become accustomed to.

With the wall opened up, the bump-out was reframed flat through a change order. The shower mixing valve and drain were relocated to suit the new geometry, requiring fresh copper supply runs and ABS drain modifications. New blocking was added behind the tile surface to anchor the grab bars at the saved heights and to support a tiled seated ledge inside the shower.

Waterproofing was built with a Johns Manville GoBoard system: 1/2-inch GoBoard on the walls, a sloped GoBoard shower pan, and the GoBoard Point Drain assembly, all sealed with GoBoard sealant per the manufacturer's spec and flood-tested before tile. Two niches were framed and substrated to serve different use cases from a seated position: a full-height vertical niche above the grab bars sized for taller bottles, and a smaller shaving niche on the opposite wall at chair height.

Tile installation used Everest White Polished Porcelain in a 12x24 format on the walls, set horizontally with leveling clips and a ledger board on the first course to hold the layout flat during the initial cure. The shower pan and curb were finished in a Waterbrook Jumbo Sliced Pebble Mosaic in Golden, hand-blended at the sheet joints to break up grid lines. Schluter Jolly trim in bright white aluminum was used at every exposed tile edge and at both niches.

Final finishes included a brushed nickel shower system with a fixed rain head, a handheld on a slide bar reachable from the seated ledge, both grab bars reinstalled at their original heights, the GoBoard Dakar drain grate in brushed nickel, and an Altair Marcelo 76-inch by 64-inch brushed nickel frameless bypass glass shower door templated to the finished tile.