Well, there is no way they are putting a pIece of vinyl base -I'm picturing a wide strip of ugly stuff like they use in commercial locations between the rug and the wall - maybe you are thinking of something else. What about a well primed and painted piece of wooden quarter round or other nice looking trim? Could we caulk the seam and then apply the trim and then caulk the edges of the trim between the tub and floor? I took a couple of pictures and I don't think the gap is quite as wide as in Bill's pic of the motel.

I am a DIY'er and did a pretty significant bathroom remodel where I did all the tile work. On my shower, I used Laticrete Hydroban and durock for my walls. At all corners and at the tub flange, I used fiberglass tape embedded in thinset, sort of like your video. Much cheaper I imagine. The Schluter Band is water and vapor proof I believe. You will be using Redgard to achieve the same water management goal, so I don't believe you would need the Schluter product. All changes of material and planes will be covered with the fiberglass tape and thinset. All the fasteners will be covered with thinset. All valves are set with tape and thinset, or the product included with the valves. My valves came with a taping product that I thinset into place. Then everything is coated in the water management membrane such as Redgard or Laticrete. I filled in all small voids with thinset. I don't have a picture of the bottom of my shower pan and Durock, but I think I taped it with the fiberglass tape. It has been some time since I did this job. Below, is my thinset and taped cement board. True Confessions, I don't think I have enough fasteners, nor the right kind, in my wall, and I worry about this flaw in my shower. I had drywallers hang this for me when they did the rest of the room. I assumed they used the correct fasteners, but they didn't. They started out with galvanized nails, which I believe would have been ok, but I wanted screws, so they switched to the drywall screws. I had the Durock screws, but didn't give them to the workers, assuming they had their own. They didn't. So after they left and I saw the, I tried adding my Durock screws into the wall. I couldn't do it, I just wasn't strong enough. DH was out farming and wasn't available to drive more in for me. So I proceeded. My mistake, as I learned later the drywall screws deteriorate in cement board over time because of the alkaline conditions. I confessed to DH that the walls might fall down in a few years. He said, "well when they do, we'll just fix it." What a relief I felt, I no longer carried this burden of knowing that I flubbed up: Here is the bottom where the coating is onto the shower pan. It hard to see, but the pan and walls are totally sealed in the Hydroban. Click it open to see the bottom of the walls at the shower pan, where I taped a plastic sheeting to protect the pan. Be sure to follow the recommendations for thickness with your Redgard. This is Laticrete Hydroban: If you click the picture open you might be able to see the valves sealed with the Hydroban. This green tape is by 3M and is very strong used for taping concrete I believe. It was great to use to hold hanging tiles into place until the thinset cured. You will want this tape for your tiling job, I loved it:

1. No problem I can see with this. Caulk the edges. 2 Setting the tub in morter, if slab, no plastic needed. If plywood, you can use a liner on the floor. On top of morter, really no need. 3. I'm a big fan of Fusion Pro. Use a small paint mixer to blend it up and it softens the grout a bit. Lightly dampen the areas you're working on. Only do small areas at a time, don't let it "dwell" on the surface for more than a minute or two, tops. Take a well wrung-out sponge and go over the area in a circular motion, then clean out the sponge and gently wipe diagonally across the tile, flip sponge and continue next wipe. An hour or so later, you "may" need to take a barely damp microfibre cloth and buff the tile....finish with a dry cloth, if needed.

I’m not sure where your leak is coming from, I just wanted to tell our experience so you can gauge whether it might be a possibility in your case. One of our guest bathrooms had a leak that we originally assumed was from the shower. We hadn’t lived in the house for very long, and we hadn’t even used that shower yet when my sister came to visit. She stepped out of the shower and realized that water was squeezing up between the tiles when she stepped on them. Naturally, she informed us. My hubby had the entire bathroom completely gutted in half an hour! (It was a small bathroom with a Fiberglass shower, the tiles popped up like toast out of a toaster, and he’s just a beast... lol!) we see evidence of long term damage and provide my sister with another bathroom to use for the remainder of the visit. We didn’t start the bathroom remodel immediately, and when we did start it was slow going. We were very fortunate because we had barely started the remodel when we got another weather front move in with a whole lot of moisture... (It has been snowing a lot during her visit) and that’s when we realized the bathroom was leaking from another source! Hubby again ripped up the bathroom, and this time ripped out part of the wall that is on the exterior and that’s when we realized the leak was coming from outside. It took us a bit to figure out but we finally determined (with outside help) that it was because that wall was directly against an exterior chimney that had not been flashed properly. We left that bathroom unfinished for quite a while while we fixed the chimney problem, and waited for some more really good rain storms to make sure it was indeed dry before we finished our bathroom remodel. We were just fortunate that we have a lot of other bathrooms and this was just a guest bathroom. Anyways, I hope your issue isn’t something like that!