Prepping a Shower for Tile

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Let’s start from the beginning. I have a friend, Andrea, who’s house flooded when it rained really hard one day and the water didn’t soak into the ground fast enough, so they took this opportunity to remodel their far outdated house. Since remodeling is my jam, they asked me for help. I told them I’d give them advice on their house but I couldn’t do the whole thing since it’s so big and I’m one person, but I’d take control of their 2 girls rooms and their girls Jack and Jill bathroom. I started with their bathroom so they could get back to using it asap. Below is the before.

I was a little intimidated by this tile because it was EVERYWHERE! It went throughout their whole house on the floor and all throughout this bathroom up to the ceiling. I didn’t know where to start so when they had the guys out to demo the other bathrooms in their house I also asked him to have them demo this tile and I’d put it back together. Below is after demo and after they installed the new flooring throughout their house.

I started by cutting hardie board down to size and securing it to the studs with cement screws. This hardie board is red because it’s water resistant. I cut it down with a cut off tool, it’s a huge pain and you should wear a mask when cutting it down because the dust is terrible for you to breathe in. I really dislike this part of the project. You can also use a Schluter system which is a foam like material and way easier to use, but it also costs A LOT more.

I got the left and back put up pretty easy.

The left wall was a little more tricky. I asked Jason, Andrea’s husband, to move the light switches to the other side of the wall so I wouldn’t have to tile around them. It also seems safer to have the electrical far away from running water. Not sure what they were thinking by putting light switches right here.

Also, whoever installed the piping never secured the lower part to a stud so it moved freely. It’s not supposed to do that.

Jason added a 2×4 stud and secured the pipe and I finished adding the hardie board. I didn’t have a whole piece left so I pieced it together. It ended up working out because it was easier to go around the pipes that way. When you do this each piece needs to begin and end on a stud so everything is nice and secure.

Then it was time to waterproof everything. I used this waterproofing tape to put over all the seams. It’s not sticky like regular tape, you use Red Guard paste to stick it to the seams. Red Guard is a paste type substance that dries like rubber and it’s waterproof once it dries. You tape all the seams and corners and the bottom edge of the tub and around the pipes. Then you smear the Red Guard all over the rest of the area that will be behind the tile.