How to Finish a Basement Bathroom: Laying porcelain tile in the shower stall and floor.

This project is continued from How to Finish a Basement Bathroom – Part 4.

Basement Bathroom: Tile the Shower and Floor

I set the tile in the basement bathroom shower stall first, beginning with the walls so there was no worry about dropping thinset mortar on the shower stall floor. The white dots are plastic tile spacers. The Latitcrete 255 Multimax thinset does an incredible job of holding the tiles in place even with no sag. Pulling off a newly set tile to check the mortar bond is a challenge.

I won’t cover the basics of laying tile here because there are many tutorials and books on the subject.

The tile was laid from the top of the stall, working my way down to the floor such that the most visible rows were whole tiles.

The basement bathroom shower stall after laying the tiles:

The basement bathroom tile floor pattern uses three different tile sizes. I marked a center line the length for alignment and trial fitted the floor pattern:

The field tile was walked the length of the room to the doorway following the center line I marked on the floor. The tiles lined up perfectly with no cuts!

The porcelain floor tile has been laid with thinset and is almost finished. I have a final row of 2 inch x 2 inch row to set along the right wall, a couple of cuts to make around the soil pipe for the toilet. Notice the bathroom door is removed for an unobstructed work space.

The porcelain tile is grouted and the bathroom door is reinstalled:

The basement bathroom shower stall and floor tile after grouting:

Up Next

Having built the shower stall and laid the tile, the hard part of the finishing the basement bathroom is done. My remaining tasks for this project are to install the:

1. Shower valve and shower head.
2. Sewage ejector pump and sewage line connections.
3. Hot and cold water plumbing connections.
4. Set the vanity, sink and toilet.
5. Vanity lights and switch.

This project is continued in How to Finish a Basement Bathroom – Part 6.

Enjoy!
Bob Jackson