First, this is not a tutorial on redoing your bathtub surround; this is a post of our progress photos of the process! Redoing the tub surround was on the list of things to do… in the future. Definitely not when it happened, and definitely not because I had cracked the surround. I had originally thought this project would be done in a month… but as we all know by now, that was ~delusional thinking~. It took about 4 months to do. Many thanks to our lovely neighbours who let us use their basement washroom for showers during that time. They also helped with setting the tub up, and even did the tiling (some of when we were on holidays so we returned to it just needing the hardware!).

The process looked like this: demo old surround, cry/stress about the water damage found in the studs, fix those studs, have new window installed, insulate, install new tub, waterproofing, tiling, trim and hardware! We first started July 10 and finished December 6. We literally went an entire season without a shower in our own home – I cannot recommend this if you don’t have great neighbours and friends.

This is NOT a tutorial on how to redo your tub surround because, honestly, this project was very challenging for us, even as experienced DIYers. Without the help of our neighbours and friends who fixed the damaged studs (very tricky on the outside walls!), installed the tub and plumbing, and did the tiling, we would have spent much more money and had to hire out help. Maybe it would have been better if we weren’t working full-time jobs and this wasn’t our only shower/bath, but overall, I found this project to be quite stressful. It really pushed our skills (which was great), but with such a small budget and room for error, the delays really hit me mentally. Thankfully, it is done, and I cannot be happier with how it turned out – and am thankful that when we do the basement bathroom, it can take time without making me shower elsewhere for months!

Here are some photos of the process of redoing the shower and tub surround!

site supervisor Nutmeg during demolition
using the multi tool to cut
demoing drywall
finding damaged studs that were hidden
Close up of damaged studs
ready for waterproofing!
installing the schluter kerdi board
adding in the niches
plumbing is set up
working on waterproofing
ready for tile!
waterproofed niches with schluter
laying out tile to know best place to start
neighbour Jill installing tile
tiling up the wall
first wall done
perfect corners!
niches are big enough to hold costco shampoo/conditioner
drywall fixing next to tub
mudding up to the edge
trim on ceiling to hold the curtain tracks
trim on bottom of tub to hide imperfections of leveling it
trim on side to hide the schluter
finally installing the polished nickel hardware

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