Home Improvement Today?

and preferred tub/shower wall with either of these so far



the left pattern

 

Ceramic or porcelin ?

 

or


with design running maybe a foot from the top of the wall

 

porcelain

 

nice

 

i cant believe the look and feel of the grain in the tile to replicate wood.

 

I bought the Ditra mat at Home Depot.

 

i wouldn't go overboard w/ the tile/design in the shower... maybe a row or two of listello, ...but more than that is $$$ and work, and more grout...

as to the floor, the reason i mentioned the additional layer of plywood was to tie together what appears to be several "sections" of subfloor (i.e. not tongue-grooved joints there???), and to add some stiffness... technically you're supposed to calculate the anticipated max deflection of the floor under a center-span type point load... a deflection of L/360 or less is "ok" for ceramic/porcelein, ...and L/720 or less is "ok" for stone... however, i doubt many people do...

 

i tried looking online and didn't see it listed, but i think i will put 1/4 ply ( yes opposite "grain" ) and the ditra on top as a base, so its stable and wont bow much. its only a 6x10 bathroom. vanity and tub on the right, and toilet straight ahead along back wall. no soffit over the tub, i prefer the full hieght for the smaller room

 

yeah she saw the price for some of the "accent" tiles and is reconidering, realizing it could be about 500 worth of tiles that will occupy a 8" x 10' line of tiles..

also, not concerned with the grout part of it as i will more likely than not have someone else tile the shower and do the grout. i dont have the patience or stamina since the motorcycle accident.

 

Can you access the underside of the subfloor now ?

 

these were some other tile options in the wood look. absolutely uncanny

 

yes on about 78.74% of the subfloor. i cannot access it with out pulling out soffit where the second floor canter-levers the first

 

Tinfoil has a good point about the plywood joints , are they all supported ? Especially the ones that run parallel to the joists ?

 

yes every edge is sitting on and secured to a joist. that is why in the picture of the floor the original flooring was left in because i would not have been able to trim it to the wall and have it secured.

 

anyone have experince with hot tubs....good ones, etc? we are getting ready to put ours on order and just checking to see who does what or knwos something about this, researching online but research is tough on this type of item, at least practical research

 

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... ^^^ ... Funny you mention those deflection ratios ... I quote them all the time to my buddies ... especially over 20' -0" custom single garage doors.

PS ... When I did my 18' garage door ... I wanted the deflection as close to ZERO as possible and I had a load bearing perpendicular beam coming into the center of the garage door beam ...

So, I bolted together 4 - 24" LVLs and that garage door wall will be over a foot thick (with 4-LVLs, plywood, sheetrock, trim & etc. when finished) ... ... with no detectable deflection ...
.

 

You can put a transition piece in. Cracked tile doesn't look right either.

Here's a transition piece I made when I had the same scenario. It only ended up being about 3/4" higher.

I agree not going overboard on the tile design. Remember, someone has to clean all the mildew out of those grout joints eventually. The less grout joints on the shower, the easier it is to clean. Not to mention, Crazy design = more cuts = more time = more waste = more $$$$

The females always get wowed by how cool the fancy tile looks and don't think about how much of a PITA it is to install and later clean.

 

What is the recommendation. Should I screw down or nail down the second layer of ply?

 

I ushually screw it, ive been told its actually better to not screw into the joist, screw every 4-6" only into the subfloor. I dont do much tile though, im a curious as to what everyone else says.