No Renovation Regret! Template to Ensure Enough Shower Storage
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Template corner shower shelf and shower niche to ensure enough shower storage during a renovation. No shower renovation regret here!
Storage space is one of the many decisions you encounter during a shower remodel. Whether you decide on a shower niche, corner shelves or a ledge, you want the storage space to have…well…enough space for all your shampoos, conditioners, facial wash, body wash, bar soap, shaving cream, razors…
You get the idea.
We all have our list of shower essentials. To end up with one left on the floor after a full out remodel would be more than the pain in your “backside” from bending over to get it.
Renovation regret of too little storage in the shower is fully preventable before demo even begins.
Templating is the answer.
Building a template of corner shelves, niches or a ledge is a must to guarantee your shower remodel works for you! No matter what system you decide, this method will work for it.
Tools:
- Paper
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Tape measure
- All the stuff you want to store. You also have to consider how many people are going to use the shower possibly in the future. More people = more stuff = more shower storage space.
- The thickness of your chosen field tile.
Creating your tangible preview:
Grab a piece of paper along with ALL of the stuff you plan on stashing and let’s get started!
Step 1: Measure out the storage part of your proposed shelf or niche.
Corner shelf measuring tip: If you opt for a corner shower shelf don’t forget to account for embedding it in the wall.
When you install a corner shower shelf some of it disappears into the rest of the wall tile. Just like the shower niche, how much depends on the thickness of the wall tile.
For instance, let’s say you have 1/2” travertine in your shower field tile. So add on 1/2″ x 2 since you have to account for embedding the corner shelf in both sides of the wall. If you want 8″ of exposed shelf along the two legs, that means you need to have 9″ legs with 1/2″ travertine.
Diagram of exposed tile in a corner shower shelf.
Niche measuring tip: If you opt for a prefabricated shower niche don’t forget to account for the tile eating into the official size. How much depends on the tile size. For instance, if it says 12” x 12” x 3.5” the and you have ⅜” tile, the end result will be something more along the lines of 11” x 11” x 3.5”.
The 3.5″ remains the same if the wall tile in the front extends the same–or close enough–distance in the front as in the back of the niche. If the wall tile is significantly different than the tile on the back of the niche, you’ll need to adjust the measurement.
Diagram of exposed bottom tile in a shower niche.
Step 2: Cut out the shape of the storage you plan on installing.
9” x 9” corner shower shelves:
Corner shower shelf templates: notice the template on the right has the part going into the wall folded underneath so as not to forget adding it to the real thing as well as not accidentally trying to put products on that space during the next step.
11” x 3.5” shower niches:
Shower niche templates.
Step 3: Start loading up all your stuff on the template.
Organize it as you expect you would like it displayed and easily accessible. While you could cram as much as possible on every shelf, you might get frustrated by the Tetris game that happens every time you want the huge Tresemme bottle in the back.
Experiment time with the corner shower shelf templates!
Experiment time with the shower niche template!
What are your results?
Maybe you find out you need more than one or two shelves or niches.
Or your results tell you to add on another inch on the corner shelf.
Focusing on corner shelves here: The other added benefit is getting to actually see the shelf ahead of time. You can make your template 3-D. Because of this ability, you can even try out different thicknesses if you are making (or having someone else) fabricate a corner shelf. If your shelf is made from tile you can decide if you want to sandwich two or three layers together. If you have excess slab, you can see what the 2 or 3 cm slab will look like as a shelf.
*Personal experience here. I actually didn’t do this on either of my bathrooms and ended up with some renovation regret. Attempting to recall eight or so years ago, I believe I made the mistake of fabricating 8” corner shelves thinking they would be large enough in the bathtub surround. Or perhaps I looked up other standard sizes for prefabricated shower shelves, like this 8″ x 8″ marble one at Floor & Decor. In any case, I did not consider the wall taking up some of the horizontal space. It wasn’t until I was putting all my shower essentials in their new home when I discovered they were smaller than I wanted. I was able to learn from this mistake and the walk-in master shower has the desired size shelves. The bathtub surround still has plenty of storage–I installed three corner shelves. It just could have gone better had I had gone through the extra five minute exercise this post covers.
For your benefit, here are comparison photos of the two different sized corner shower shelves:
8 inch custom travertine shower shelf. 7 inches are available for storage.
9 inch custom granite shower shelf. 8 inches are available for storage.
Here is a comparison on what you can fit on an 8″ reveal versus a 7″ reveal.
Sample maximum load on a 8 inch corner shower shelf.
Sample maximum load on a 9 inch corner shower shelf.
Likewise, here is what the same stuff looks like on the different sized shelves.
Sample setup of 8 inch custom travertine corner shower shelves.
Sample setup of 9 inch custom granite corner shower shelves.
You probably noticed the smaller travertine shelves are significantly thinner than the larger granite shelves. So perhaps it is a good thing that the travertine shelves are smaller. I had not started on the master bathroom so I did not have excess granite slab for the shelves, otherwise, I would have used the same material in both.
Don’t make this mistake.
In all reality you won’t because you are here. Learning from my own renovation regret (along with preventing yours) is why I feel it is important to share this knowledge!
You can check out templating a corner shelf or niche in real-time using this method in our video:
Knowing you have the right amount of storage space planned is just another reason you are remodeling in the first place. It’s just another warm and fuzzy you can have before starting on your shower remodel.
While we’ve touched on the benefits of corner shower shelves over shower niches, whichever you ultimately decide on will be less than optimal if you can’t store all your stuff on there.
Try it out!
Enjoy your new shower and perfectly sized storage system.
