Tile Shower Surround, San Leandro, CA, March, 2022

We chose not to use metal edging around the niche on this shower surround. Older homes tend to be out of square, or not flat or plumb, and that makes getting tile surfaces flat and even tricky. This San Leandro job was such a home.

The problem with old walls

There’s a certain feel you get when you see a perfectly planed tile shower surround: every tile sitting flush with its neighbors, grout lines running dead straight, light sliding evenly across the wall. In an older house, that’s almost impossible without doing extra work. Walls that have settled for decades lean, bow, and wander out of square. Tile doesn’t hide that. It exaggerates it, because every tile edge becomes a tiny ledge that catches the light.

There are two ways to deal with it. One is to float a new mortar bed and create a true, flat surface from scratch. The other is to adjust each tile as it goes up, building the mortar thicker behind low spots and thinner over high ones, checking every tile against its neighbors. Either way, it takes a lot of mortar and a lot of time. That’s why I work one job at a time, in days of six to eight hours, and stop before fatigue sets in. My attitude ends up recorded in the work.

Under the tile

A shower surround is only as good as what’s behind it. The cement backer seams were sealed with alkali-resistant mesh tape set in thinset, and the seams and joints were coated with a waterproofing membrane like RedGuard or AquaDefense. At the bottom, backer and tile come down over the tub flange so water runs into the tub, not behind it. Where tile meets the tub, the joint is caulked in a matching color, not grouted, because a change of plane needs a joint that can flex.

The tile was set in polymer-modified mortar close to the grout color, with each tile back wiped clean before setting. Cuts were made on the wet saw, with a score-and-snap cutter for straight runs, and with a diamond-blade grinder for notches and fine work.

A niche without trim

Metal edging is the easy way to finish a niche. It covers cut edges and hides small misalignments. Leaving it out means every edge has to be cut clean and every corner has to line up on its own, which is much harder in a wall that isn’t square. The payoff is a niche that looks built into the wall rather than trimmed onto it.

Planning a shower or bath remodel? See what we install, or send photos for an estimate.