Great comments! Thank you for helping me to think about this out loud ;-). We live in northern California, one hour south of San Francisco, and a half hour from the beach in Santa Cruz. The area is pretty pricey and most single-story houses are being converted into second story houses, some of them good, some of them not so good, AKA monster homes :-(. We are baby boomers and like the size of our house, our garden, etc., and the fact that it is a one story. It's perfectly fine for the two of us. I took care of my Dad before he passed and he was in a walker. I like the idea of having a higher ADA toilet, grab bars, small corner bench, separate hand shower, fixed shower head, and low curb for the shower. And, we are not without our own aches and pains in the joints and lower back! jkom51: thanks for the tip on looking at cultured marble/cultured granite. I am liking the looks of carrera marble a lot, but I'm not sure if it will be too slippery and hard to clean. I don't think I can steal room from the two adjacent bedrooms because they are very small and I wouldn't want to lose a closet in one of the rooms. I guess this is another reason for one, nice, big shower because it opens up the little bathroom. I am seeing the frameless shower door in there.

As long as you get a similar style frame you should be ok. The only screws which go into the tile are in the side rails; there should be no screws going into the curb (or bathtub). The screws you might be seeing by the bottom rail are probably the ones for the divider piece, but those go into the bottom rail not the shower curb. You will have lots of caulk or silicone to clean off, but even if the holes are in different places the side rails should cover them. remove the doors, lift off the top rail, unscrew the side rails and carefully pry up the bottom rail. Clean surfaces thoroughly and follow directions to install your new shower doors. If you need to drill new holes into tile, remember to break the surface of the tile with an awl before you drill. You might need to cut top and bottom rails to fit, but a hacksaw will work fine. Silicone lots of places.

Drilling into tile can be done, but you have to be very, very careful. Plus that, it might be difficult to determine where the studs were for placement given the thickness of tile over your cement board or whatever is behind it. Have you looked into the Moen Magnetix shower heads? We have 5 of these in 2 family homes and love them. We installed our first ones about 4 years ago and liked them so well we kept replacing other shower heads with them. They dock very securely, have a variety of spray functions, and come in several finishes. We have purchased 3 of the finishes, and they all hold up well. The larger spray heads don't have as good of pressure according to reviews as the smaller spray heads, so all 5 of ours are the smaller ones and work great. The type of bar you are picturing is more of what I'd consider to be an accessible setup for someone who might be handicapped and needs to sit in a shower chair during showering, so the head can be raised and lowered as needed. If this is your situation, then perhaps you can call in an expert to assess the possibility of installation.

My guess would be a tile installer, but I think that type of shower pan construction is a long gone skill. There are so many better products available now that I can't imagine someone using hot asphalt and roofing paper to build a shower pan. Bruce