Shower Niches + Heated Floors - Croix's Bath Part 2

We've got some catching up to do! Last weekend was less about pretty progress and more about behind the scenes prepping. On Friday night we headed to Home Depot to pick up our tub.

As I mentioned in my last post we were kind of forced into upgrading the tub and after looking over the options we decided to go with this Delta tub. We were sold on the depth and the curve, both of which will give the Croix a more comfortable bathing experience and give the bathroom a more updated look. Getting the tub installed was no easy task. The tub is literally the same size as the opening it was to fit in to, so maneuvering this beast into place was a struggle.

In the image above you can see we started installing the durarock immediately after the tub was in place, but before we went any further we had to finalize our niche placement. A niche is a recess in the shower wall built to hold shampoo, soaps, etc...it's essentially a built-in alternative to sitting your bottles on the edge of the tub or adhering a basket to the wall with suction cups. A built-in niche can be whatever size or shape you choose and will be tiled to match the rest of the tub/shower surround for a cohesive look. This is a feature you can only really add when you have your shower walls down to the studs in a remodel like this or a new construction situation, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of our current state and add a niche.... or two.

That's right, we added two! Why? Well, number one, why not?  If Croix grows up to be anything like me he will likely have a plethora of bottles and soaps in the shower. And two, the long term plan is for this new bedroom of Croix's to be a shared space with a sibling so we wanted to be sure to have enough storage space for multiple people to utilize this bath.  (and no... that is not a hint towards any future announcements...)

Next, we took care of some sheetrock patching and then got busy with the next big install - heated floors. Just writing the words "heated floors" in a post about a 2 year old's bathroom makes me feel all kinds of ridiculous, but like shower niche's, this type of install is only really possible when a bathroom floor is gutted, so we thought, let's give it a whirl. We purchased the Sun Touch Floor Warming System from Home Depot.  The installation was pretty straight forward....Brent used his dremel to cut a box for the controls right next to the existing outlet. He pulled power from the outlet and then cut a another small hole at the bottom of the wall to run the wiring to connect to the coils at the floor.

Next, he and Croix rolled out the coils and we were ready to lay the tiles right on top. Here's a sneak peek of our new floors!!

This weekend we were able to knock out the floor tile and plan to grout one night this week. We have a plumber scheduled to come out tomorrow to hook up our new shower valve and then we can get started tiling the shower. We are rolling right along and can't wait to show you the finished floor and other tile elements next time we chat!

All photos are my own.