So how do you tile a shower niche? That is today’s question. Well, we’re going to
share with you how to do it in today’s tutorial. And Steve’s going to share with you not
how to tile just one but two shower niches in the exact same shower surround. So this
can be a little bit difficult. There are some tools that you definitely want to learn how
to use, and Steve’s going to share that with you right now.
I always just use a ¼” notch trowel. This is a square notch trowel. Quarter inch is
usually what you want to use for most wall tile and mosaics. It really depends on how
thick everything is. But if you have a ¼” tile, ¼” notch trowel works pretty well
because it definitely gives enough thin-set on it but also won’t necessarily ooze up
through the joints. What I like to do is start with the sill of
it. And basically all I’m using is pieces of the 12” x 24”. I’m just cutting them
to fit. I like to have my factory edge facing the front where my pencil trim will meet.
And really you want to have that factory edge showing regardless on any trim to use because
it’s going to have a nice edge on it. So I like to start with the base first then
do my wall tile because it’s kind of the same thing where when you flash a window,
you start with the sill and then you do the sides, and then you do the top. So when water
hits it, it all runs down over each other. When you put the mosaics against the back
wall meeting on top of that bottom sill, it’s a nicer joint to see the back of this rather
than having a grout joint right in the corner on bottom. That’s where a lot of soaps come
in, and all that stuff is going to sit. So do your bottom sill first and then the mosaics.
So we’re going to thin-set the back of the niche. We’re going to thin-set the bottom
as well here. Then backbutter your sill. Be a little bit generous on the back portion
of that tile so that you can slope this tile. You want to slope that sill towards the front
because you don’t want water to sit on the back, and you want it perfectly level and
still have, so I would just say, enough to where a bottle of shampoo can sit and not
fall off and also enough that water can run off.
And one of the most single important inventions that I use that has made my life so much easier
with tile is this laser. I don’t know if you can see this laser mark that comes across
here. This is a level line. It does vertical and horizontal, but I’m able to set this
sill exactly the same level as this one, and it just makes everything so much easier rather
than using a level or anything. I use the level to just pitch it, but everything else
is used off of this laser. And the way this laser works is I have a LaserJamb that I’m
able to just move this up and down to whatever height that I need it. But that makes it tremendously
easy to align everything up. so I can see right here I’m a little high on this side,
so I’m going to press that down until my laser mark is completely even where I want
it. I always cut the tile on this on these niches
a little bit proud of your substrate. And the main reason is because when you go to
thin-set this tile, you want to have a decent amount of reveal on this pencil trim. You
don’t want this pencil trim to be even with your wall tile because that will look kind
of dumb. So you want to have this kind of proud of it so it looks basically like a picture
frame that you hang on the wall or something. So I always just kind of measure this out.
When I don’t have sills, I even pull them out a little bit—I would say about 1/16”—outside
of the substrate. Makes it easy. And you got a lot of room back here because I’m putting
those mosaics on the back wall so you have a lot of room to cover that back to pull it
out. So I’m able to just look at my laser, make
sure that this sill is going to sit at exactly level height as the other one. So when I do
my tile, it looks good. Check and make sure this is draining down. It’s probably a little
too much. Okay, so yeah. That’s perfectly aligned with that.
And so, to embed these mosaics on the back wall, I actually have a little short grout
float. But any grout float would work. But shorter ones kind of work in the smaller niche.
But if you don’t have that, really anything just as long as it’s flat, even like a piece
of 2” x 4” that you can stamp this thing incorrectly. It would work just fine. Put
that back bedding on there. And the second most important thing that I’ve
purchased other than the laser level to get everything right are these type of spacers.
They’re called horseshoe spacers. And I always get the blue ones. They’re 1/16”
thick. But boy, these things make it so much easier than those little rubber ones that
you get at the big box stores. Sometimes those rubber ones aren’t exactly consistent in
the thickness of it. But look how big you can just insert this in, and it makes it so
much easier that you can build them up. If you want 1/8” spacer, you can just put two
of them together. And then even on floor tile or whatnot, if I needed to build up something
I can actually wedge this under the tile to lift up that tile. And even on the wall substrate.
If I’m having a hard time getting my lippage working right, I can shove these underneath
it there. They make it real easy to pop that out. So horseshoe shims, I highly, highly
recommend. So we’re just going to put that right in
between the piece mosaic that is meeting the other. So then you have the perfect space
there. Then we wind up doing the top just butting
up against that. So we got 4” there. Okay, so I’m actually going to move my laser up
to the top level here and make sure this is exactly straight, too. There’s nothing worse
than having one side looking off than the other. It’s definitely more complicated
having two of them like this together. Okay, and then we’ll do the sides here.
Since we have this slope at the bottom, I would just measure your long point. Cut it
that way, and then trim it with your grinder. It’s basically 14 7/8”. Like I said, you
want to have your factory edge on the face of this so when you go to use your trim pieces,
it looks nice that way as well. Okay, and then you just use your little grinder.
Just do that little angle cut to level this there. I’m just going to get my vertical
crosshair on here, too, and make sure vertically this is the same.
So also one thing to consider when you’re ordering tile for all this. Thinking about
“What’s going to get me the least amount of joints around my niche?” So these are
pretty small niches, but this is 14” long. So luckily we’re doing that 12” x 24”
tile, so I’m getting a continuous thing. But if you’re using 12” x 12”s, you
might consider wanting to get a few pieces of the larger stuff so that you could do these
niches without having any joints in them. Not that it’s a big deal on the sides, but
it definitely makes a difference on the bottom. If I did a big 24” large niche, it just
stinks to have any grout joints right on that bottom plate. So always something to think
about when you’re ordering tile. So even if like you were to get some marble with that,
like a subway tile marble or something like that, if you want to do the niches, you need
to get some 12” x 12” or whatever the larger pieces of marble that you can get so
that you can have a solid surface. If you get subway tiles, subway tiles are normally
3” x 6”. Three inches depth isn’t going to do it. You’ll either have to make your
niche shallower, which is something you’re not going to want to do because if your soap
bottles and things like that, you want to get as much room as you possibly can. So you
definitely need that 3 ½”, 4” to make that bottom sill. So just a lot of thought
has to go into it and how you’re going to design these niches and make it easy. But
if you’re using a larger format tile, you already probably have excess pieces that you
need to make them. I got these niches pretty much done. I’m
actually just going to do this pencil trim after I get the wall tile in and basically
just use my pencil trim as a guideline of where I need to cut this. It’s going to
be a little bit easier to inset these pencil trim pieces when I have a wall tile up so
that I could thin-set the side of it, and it won’t move. So by doing these niches
first, it gives me a very good indication of where I need to cut my wall tile. So start
with those niches first, and it’ll make it a lot easier on you.
So now you know how to tile a shower niche. Now if you want to take your skills to the
next level, you;ll love our course called “How to Tile a Shower.” So if you want
to tile the entire shower surround in your bathroom—you want it to look amazing—just
go to BathroomRepairTutor.com/HowtoTileaShower. The course is right there for you. It’s
very, very affordable. And we think in the end you’ll have an amazing looking bathroom
if you follow all of our tips. But that’s it for today. Thanks so much
for watching this video. If you got any questions whatsoever, ask them down in the comments.
We’ll help you out with those. And that’s it. We’ll talk to you soon.
Take care.