Let's talk about our bathroom. The vision I have had for the bathroom was to bring the outdoors in. Realistically, I would prefer our bathroom be in the tropics and outside, at least the shower. However, we live in Denver where we have winters (barf) and our bathroom is on the second floor so, it seems I will not have my dream anytime soon. That means we get creative and do what we can so the transformation began.
Our bathroom was redone before we bought our house. It's nice but nothing fancy. The tile floor is the same tile that's in the shower and we have neutral walls and vanity. We do however, have an AMAZING view of the mountains from our window! The sad part is the glass is frosted and someone here is not quite tall enough to enjoy the full view when the window is open. The hope for the window is we will expand it into the shower. In the mean time, I am convinced I can swap the glass on the existing window but we'll save that one for another day.
Booooo...
Much better with the window open...
We have a flat roof on our house and our shower is fairly good size. We decided not long after moving in that we wanted a skylight over our shower...that would certainly help bring the outdoors in but we'll call that a very future project and one we will not be doing on our own. Meandering through the World Wide Web one day looking at showers with skylights and dreaming of one day having my own.....I saw a picture of a shower that was so big it had it's very own tree in it! THAT IS WHAT I NEEDED! "Honey, I have an idea!". I couldn't have a tree in my shower (that I have figured out yet anyway...so we'll see) but I could have plants in my shower. I attempted to make my own wall planters out of clay so I could plant succulents in them. I made one that wasn't quite big enough and it now holds all of my makeup brushes which it does very well. Instead, I set a different planter on the shelf in the shower, how cute.
It was quickly proven this was a bad idea; I would walk in the bathroom and wonder why on earth there was dirt all over my shower floor and my plant looked like it had been through the ringer. I guess when you have plants in your shower they are no match for your husband's handsome arms and shoulders and they get knocked on the ground quite easily. How nice that he tried to put it back as if I wouldn't notice he attempted to murder my plant. I moved the plant to a different shelf on the other side where it was safe from flailing limbs.
So far so good and from there I moved a plant in that sits on the floor of the shower....how tropical.
If you read the post about our new ceiling you'll know that I decided in the middle of it that we needed a wood shower floor which brought us to our next project. Ahhh the inspiration you can find on the internet! A wood shower floor would be a perfect addition to get us to our end goal of bringing the outdoors in. When I first suggested it, Jesse thought I had gone and lost my mind. There was a bit of back and forth of how we would build this thing. When Jesse builds something, he builds it sturdy which I personally think is sometimes taken too far but that's his job not mine so I go with it. I thought 1x2's but from what I heard, it wouldn't be sturdy enough so we ended up doing 4 2x2 redwood balusters on the bottom and 1x3 cedar planks on the top. Finding the wood sucked, it was 3 trips to different Home Depots before found what we needed.
Our shower is 56.5" x 27.5". Jesse cut the boards the short length so they would go the same direction as the ceiling using his hand saw and miter box. To encourage drainage, he cut the ends on 22.5 degree angle. He's so fancy.
To start, I polyurethaned the crap out of the 2x2's that would make up the base. Since the shower pan slopes towards the drain, the corners and edges are what would be exposed to water the most. The center of the base would sit off the floor and not block the drain. The cedar planks were sanded a bit with the mouse sander. They needed to be smooth but, not too smooth because Jesse was convinced he would soon see his death after slipping on a wood floor in the shower. Planks were wiped down after sanding and stained with the Varathane "Red Oak" stain that was used on the ceiling. Aside from not being a fan of polyurethane in general, I did not want the look of polyurethaned wood on the shower floor and I also had Jesse's safety to think about so I went with Teak Oil. Cedar on it's own is a good wood to be used outdoors or near water and the teak oil would soak into the wood and protect it rather than put a coat on top. I painted it on and let it sit for longer than it said on the can so it really soaked in and then wiped it off with a cotton cloth. I oiled the boards individually before putting the floor together so I could get all sides of the wood.
It was left to dry overnight and then we did our back and forth about how it should be put together. Jesse wanted to put it together in the shower and nail right to the top and shocker...I disagreed. He convinced me on nailing the boards to the ceiling and don't get me wrong, that worked out great but NOT THIS TIME! I insisted we build it upside down so we could nail from the bottom. A pain in the ass? Yes. Did it work out? Eventually. We had nailed the 2 end boards to the base already so we knew the length we were working with. We tried putting it together in our dining room but it was hard to keep it square. Instead, we moved up to the bathroom and laid the boards against the shower so we had a straight flat surface to press against.
Then came the fun of spacing the boards but 80 hours later, it was perfect! Jesse wanted to glue the boards to the base along with nailing which meant very very carefully lifting the base up without disturbing the other boards.....yeah right, they moved. Once again, the boards were spaced after adding glue and replacing the base. Finally, we went down each board and nailed slowly and carefully. This went pretty darn well however, one board moved a smidge and there is a slightly larger gap in one spot but oh darn because it looks awesome!
After letting it dry another day I ended up taking it back out to the garage and throwing more oil on the top because I want it to be really waterproof. Once I took my first shower on it, I can assure you Jesse will not slip and slide to his death, the water beaded up beautifully on the wood and it drained fabulously.
On another exciting note, I have known for a while that I want to ditch the door to our bathroom and build a barn door to open up the space. After taking the door off to put the shower and ceiling in, Jesse is on board so stay tuned!
Check Jesse Notes if you want to see the details of what we used and a better description of the work that actually went into it.
This was a very budget friendly project for something that turned out so wonderfully!
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