1.What type of tiles are best along the pan? What is the difference between cove tiles and sanitary cove tiles? In most residential applications, the flat tile will be run straight down to the pan. One way or the other, the sanitary base would be the one you have to use, if you were to go that route. The difference is simple. With cove, the flat edge where the cove ends (the edge that would be facing the same direction as the face of the tile) is unfinished, made for the floor tile to abutt it and continue on, for a smooth transition from wall to floor. Sanitary base is made to sit on TOP of the floor, with that edge being glazed the same as the face of the tile. 2.The existing Walls will be replaced. What is the VERY BEST waterproof wall material to put behind the shower tiles? Is there something improved over greenboard? Can the upper part of the wall just be finished and textured like regular drywall? First off, greenboard can NOT be used as a tile backer in a shower. It MUST be cement board, unless there's a waterproofing applied over the top of it, and personally speaking, I don't even agree with that. Now, cement board is not waterproof, and there has to be a vapor barrier placed behind it, unless again, you use a waterproofing over the top of it, and for that, I would go with either one of the several available roll ons such as Laticrete's 9235 or trowel ons, such as Hydroment's Ultraset, or a sheet membrane like Kerdi. As for above the tile, you can stop the cement board just under where you want the last course of tile to be, and continue to the top with greenboard, which can then be finished however you like. As for tiling around the front side edge, could you elaborate a little bit on that?

Yes, she's the same daughter from "way back when". Time certainly flies, doesn't it? She never had any issues from her peers in high school regarding being a smart or a hard working girl, or being geared towards STEM. She's well-rounded. Not musical, though she was in the ensemble for the school musicals. Very athletic. An "All Star" in Field hockey, An All Star, All-State and Academic All American in lacrosse. Team MVP for both sports. No issues in college either in terms of her being committed to her academics. A nice transition for her in her freshman year is that she was in the "honors dorm". So she was surrounded by serious students. But they also knew how to party. And they certainly did! She really is on her way, so to speak. In some ways it's easy, in that a STEM-type education easily leads into a STEM-type of profession down the road. My son is the complete opposite. Very musical, in a few bands, he was the lead in the high school musicals, etc. Also athletic. Also team captain, team MVP, etc. While he is intelligent and does well academically, he does well "when he wants to". He's totally a liberal arts kind of guy. Zero, and I mean ZERO interest in STEM. After his freshman year in college, he took a year off to go out-of-country to do volunteer work. He's back in school now. I wont say he's disillusioned...but he's trying to put together "liberal arts education" with "career after graduation" and he's seeing that they don't line up as well as a STEM-education does. There's always the argument that a liberal arts education is just that...a basis for a well-rounded education. He's a prolific reader. While he's on a path, and doing well on the path that he is on, he's trying to figure out where the path leads. So he's still searching. But yes, we are empty-nesters! Good and bad. Miss the kids, but it's fun being adult-ish again. We're not sure what we're going to do long-term with regards to the house. I love this house, the grounds, everything. It's all "us". But I could move. I just have no idea where to move to! My only requirement would be to remain on the water. Ocean, lake, whatever. Both kids have said if we ever sell this house that they want their bedrooms "pulled out of the house" for their children to eventually sleep in. lol. I told them I'll build them new ones. Good news is long-term the kids want to live near us, or want us to live near them. So we'll see how things shake out down the road. Back on your shower topic! If you want to do a mudded pan, you can make your own pitch strips. For example, let's say you're going to use the Laticrete flanged drain. It needs 1-1/4" of mud under the flange. If your drain is off-center, no worries: 1) Take the longest drain-to-wall (not drain-to-corner) measurement. Let's say it's 30". For a code-minimum 1/4" per foot pitch over that 2-1/2' run, you need 5/8ths inch of elevation change. 2) Add 5/8" to 1-1/4" and you'll have a perimeter elevation of 1-7/8", or 1-7/8" thick of mud at the base of each wall. Now the steepest pitch you can have by code is 1/2" per foot. So as long as none of your other wall-to-drain distances are less than half (3) Make your screed strips that will run from the drain flange to the walls or from the drain to the corners. Your screed strips will all go from 1-7/8" tall at the walls (including corners) to 1-1/4" tall at the drain. No matter what their length they will all be 1-7/8" tall at the wall and 1-1/4" tall at the drain. Since your drain is slightly off-center, the four different "triangular-shaped" parts of the floor that make up the inverted pyramid will have slightly different pitches from one another, but each pitched part will be in it's own plane. And you'll have a consistent mud depth around the perimeter of the shower. If you used those manufactured pitch strips, you'd have the same pitch (1/4" per foot throughout) on all four sloped parts of your floor, but the depth of the mud at the walls would vary throughout the shower. So your bottom course of wall tile would have to be scribed for it to fit. Easiest way to make your sloped screed strips is to rip the required slope on a table saw. It's very easy with a home-made scrap wood tapering jig. Some folk like to have a perimeter screed strip (in your case 1-7/8" tall) around the entire perimeter of the shower. They pack the mud against that, then pull the strip, and fill in the gap with mud and pack the gap full. If you do that I recommend tapering one side of the strip (wider at the top, narrower on the bottom), it's easier to pull a tapered strip out of packed mud than a rectangular shaped strip. So: Pack your perimeter mud. Pack your drain flange mud. Fill in the remainder, using the screed strips as your guide. Pull the strips, fill and pack the gaps. Clear as (deck) mud?

There are two families of thought, both are fine. The most important thing to remember is that your membrane needs to be sloped. I prefer a topical membrane over a membrane buried between two layers of mud. Simply because it affords better control over moisture within the pan. Here's the "old way", with the CPE or CPVC membrane buried between two layers of mud. Courtesy of Harry Dunbar. My preslope is thicker than Harry's, a little over an inch at the drain then sloping up towards the walls. And I don't use latex admix in the mud. Shifting gears to the "second" method: With a topical membrane, you can use one sloped layer of deck mud. The membrane gets installed on the sloped mud. Then you tile on the membrane. A couple of types of topical membrane: You can use Hydroban over sloped mud. If you can get a magic trowel like they use in this video, your installation will be a breeze. Or Kerdi Membrane over sloped mud. There are a few other topical membranes, but in general they are intended for use on walls only. To use them on a shower floor requires fiddling with the mud around the drain and the drain itself, etc. Hydroban and Kerdi fully warrant their materials and methods when used as shown above. If I had to chose a "best way" I'd use Hydroban with the flanged drain. If I needed "bulletproof vapor control for a steam shower" then I'd use Kerdi. If you want the "best way to do a CPE/CPVC shower", follow Harry's methods.

Hi tmnca! One thing to think about with the Kohler shower pans is whether you may ever be using a shower stool with legs. If you were to get a longer shower bench, the Salient may cause problems because the oval really does have quite a bit of "curb" to it, as shown in Badgergal's photo of her son's shower. With a small shower stool set in the center of the shower, it is fine. If you ever need a longer shower stool, the Bellweather gives you a surface not impeded with the raised oval. I does, however, have a slant to the overall shower floor, so that must be taken into account. I have seen the Bellweather in person. It is a non-slip surface. It almost felt like a surface that would make me trip - catching my foot if I did not pick it up and step. Like if I dragged the foot, it would catch and I would trip and fall. It was a funny feeling to the bottom, and I wondered how it would feel when wet. It was NOT going to feel slippery, though! As for tile in a shower floor, the other reason to have small tiles (besides the grout lines giving traction), is that the small tiles allow the tile layer to better cope with the slant toward the drain. Larger tiles only allow you to slant in one direction. The smaller the tile, the better it is for following contours on a floor that is flowing to a drain from all directions.