Bill, Removed all floor planks and installed plywood, glad we chose that option. Will begin the Kerdi application this week. Question: Can I Redguard my niches (2) and Kerdi the rest of the shower or do you advise against that? I am afraid of all the cuts necessary when waterproofing the niches with Kerdi. My concern is them working together (Kerdi & Redguard). If I can Redguard the niches would I waterproof the niches first then apply the Kerdi? Please let me know what you suggest is the best approach. Thanks again for your help.

Side, the drawing is a little off - the door actually clears the toilet by about 1.5". :) It's a New York bathroom! Anyway, thanks Bill - I realize this is something the tile guy/contractor should do but in my case, I am responsible for buying all the materials and such, and he's just going to do the actual work, so I'm measuring for myself. There is no tub deck. The contractor is going to build a wall for alcove installation - hopefully it will be a knee wall with glass above, if I can afford the glass. If not, it'll be a full wall, which will of course require more tile. Thank you for the measurements - I'm not quite sure what you mean by bullnose on the 3" side. Does that mean that each outer corner will need to have bullnosed tile all the way up and down? That's what I assumed but I wasn't sure. Inner corners don't require anything special, right? Thanks for your help!

Blondelle, it's the edge meeting at right angles. I've got a few of those - a couple are on half-tiled walls, so I've got to go around the corner *and* finish off nicely on the top edge (and top corner). Then there are a couple of corners that also transition from half-height to full-height in the tub/shower. The "cuarto de cana" (quarter round) and "angulo cuarto de cana" (quarter round corner - can't do the tildes!) pieces, along with some bullnose, would solve the problem for me, but I'm not sure I can get those pieces for my preferred tile (and possibly not even for my less-preferred tile) in time for work to start on 9/29. Bill, I understand how to use bullnose to finish off one side of a corner edge and have the other side butt into it... but how do I finish off the top of the corner when it's a half-tiled wall? Do I just miter the bullnose strips along the top? Can I miter the (possibly glass) border tile beneath the bullnose, and then just use the vertical bullnose/butt technique down the rest of the side? (Hope that made sense... I'm just learning this stuff!)

weedyacres- LOL! That was actually something we were talking about when I wrote the post. I originally intended to install chrome wire corner shelves, but we never got around to it becuase we knew we were going to have to rip the whole thing out, so we just lived with them on the floor. Looking back, I think that I would prefer a niche to the corner shelves, and I plan to incorporate one or two in the new design.