You don't have to build from scratch, there are boxes available to be tiled. Here's one link....

Here is a link that might be useful: shower nitches

budge-- I'll detail it this evening (in kind of a hurry right now), but as far as using the studs, if that fits the size and positioning that you want, then by all means use em, and just put pieces of 2x4's on top and bottom where you want them.

Actually, now that I think about it, try doing a search. I know I outlined exactly how to do this a few weeks ago. let me know how you make out. If you can't find it, I'll outline it again.

chriskelly, I wish I had time to order but I think they are going to be building this today or tomorrow. I've tried calling around to see if anyone stocked such a thing but none of the tile places had even heard of them let alone stocked them (here in the middle of nowhere - i even had to explain the concept of shampoo niche to ea and every tile place)

Thanks bill. I will do a search and let you know.

Budge
I just searched high & low for any info - I know how much you want the niche - DON'T give up! Bill will come through even if you have to hold up the job -please do -

The pics I have aren't great - but as bill explains -cutting 2x4's to make the niche - then the cement board

Posting what I have

I'm still searching but unfortunately this looks as if that is all I have

good luck!

Budge

good news - did more searching this isn't mine but it should really help!

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/misevich/showerpics.html

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/misevich/niche2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/misevich/showerpics.html&h=640&w=480&sz=31&hl=en&start=5&sig2=0ZZOs3OhuJn3EOy_tLfnfQ&um=1&tbnid=csFfEapd6a9tIM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=103&ei=lRloRsCjFYWkhgT0sqD8BA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbuilding%2Ba%2Bshower%2Bniche%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den

Here is a link that might be useful: niche

Here's a link...I printed it out for our GC and that plus Bill's advice on slope got mine up and running.

The GC trimmed it out w/ the quarter round tile instead of bullnose, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it was already done and I had bigger fish to fry so I let it go.
Susan ~

Here's the link:

Here is a link that might be useful: Shower Niche

Thank you so much! I also found a thread where bill details teh tiling of a niche.

While I was out buying the tile this am the guy came in and started building the niche - but in the wrong wall. I had told the GC where I wanted it but should have made it clear to the guy doing the work. I'd showed him a picture yesterday of what a niche looked like and he put it in the wall that was shown in the picture. He was pretty good about it even though he had already cut a big junk out the wrong wall.

I 've just given him a picture of your niche, jejvtr since our set up is the same as yours with the little wall at teh end of the tub.

mpwd, thanks for the tiling pic that will help when we get to that stage - just not sure what happens at the front of the tile shelf to hide the seam between the tiles. Any ideas?

Thanks again.

It just struck me, why buy the boxes when the nitch is tiled anyway? Is it because they have seams that cannot be penetrated by water, as opposed to the seams when built as part of the shower walls? (not that they should let water through....and actually at this point I have no idea how they join shower seams.)

It just struck me, why buy the boxes when the nitch is tiled anyway?

It's easier and faster for the installer. The problem is that it then limits you in the size niche you can use.

Budge, could you give me the link to that thread? I should have saved it to my favorites before!!

Here you go, bill.

Hope this is the one you were thinking of too.

Here is a link that might be useful: tiling a niche

That's the one! Thanks!

You just saved SOMEONE some searching somewhere down the road!! :-)

One more thing Bill - what do you do to cover the front seam of the two tiles (top and bottom) on the front of the niche shelf?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, so what I'll do is post pics of some of the niches I've done:

Sorry bill, I should have posted the pic with the question.

I love the look of the stone shelf but I don't have stone tiles to match our vanity (carrara). I was thinking of doing the subways across the shelves.

Maybe I should just try and find some marble tile. Of course HD has 6 types of marble tile but no carrerra.

Here is a link that might be useful: niche with tile shelf

Maybe I should just try and find some marble tile.

If HD doesn't have carrera, then they just ran out. ANYONE who carries marble in stock will have carrera. That, travertine, and crema marfil are always stock tiles. If they try and tell you they don't carry it, then the heck with them-- they kjust lost a sale. I'm sure the next place, if they don't stock marble, will be able to get it for you pretty quickly.

Budge1, this is our niche, with the quarter-rd. trim. It may not be perfect but as I said, I had more things to deal with. To the GC's credit (he was also the tile guy, carpenter and everything-guy but granite) this was his 2nd niche only. He worked hard on it.

BTW, it's not centered on that wall b/c we had AC things running through the side and Dh didn't want to mess with moving it. Top is for shampoo, bottom for soap.
Susan ~

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Thanks mpwdmom. I really love the way the quarter round looks and it seems perfect to me. What is it that you don't like about it?

If it makes you feel any better, I've been looking at dozens of pictures of niches and rarely are they centred-ours won't be either :-)

Actually, even though aesthetically it works alot better, you really DON'T want to center a niche. You want to locate it closer to the showerhead wall, so you end up with as little spray as possible hitting it.

We take more baths (about 10 to 1) than showers, and that's why it's so low. And budge it's not perfect b/c if you zoom in, you can see a couple of small places where the grout didn't quite fill the space between the pieces on the shelf....might be a little more trouble to clean.

So even though I wish he'd have used bullnose to trim it, I DO like it. And as I read this forum, I realize than most are not perfect, and some are outright scary!

Except Bill's of course. ; )

Susan ~

Trust me when I tell you, I could find fault with just about every one of my installations. I'm probably my own worst critic. :-)

I have been reading your posts on the forums. We found 3 companies that sell Bathroom shower wall Niches..(the key is the term niche)
Anyway we purchased two from a company in NC called Proform niches

http://www.getproform.com/index.html

two others that sell a similar product are:

http://aquafit-usa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=AUCT&Category_Code=R

and
http://www.noblecompany.com/shower.htm

Those are all every bit as good as the one I linked above (Recess-it), and all have the same drawbacks, as well, that being that your niche size is then severely limited.

Our guy did build us a custom one. It is about 20"x36" with 3 shelves. We are very happy with the extra space - at least I think we will be when it is completely done and in use. We are in week 6 of a 3 week job.

That means it should be atleast TWICE as good!

???

Please tell me that's the way it works Bill.

However, aside from the tub gap (now solved) and a little niggling about the way the niche was tiled, it actually does look about twice as nice as I had hoped.

I couldn't do without my niche. I had it built with one thick glass shelf that the shower glass people made for me, which the tile guy built right into the niche. Both top and bottom hold Costco-sized shampoos of course!

I recently built my first niche (actually this was my first shower tile job)

It's a DIY job, but the wife is pleased with the results: