I am so in love with my porcelain tile shower with epoxy grout. No mold, easy to clean, can use any cleaner on it, if needed. I hated cleaning fiberglass, I couldn't stand the idea of real stone that needed babying or grout that grew mold.

I use bar soap, so I do need to clean the soap scum once in a while, but people say if you use body scrub instead you won't even need to do that. To clean, I just spread some kind of cleaner (usually liquid Barkeeper's Friend) with a long handled brush, let it set for ?? however long I want, then rinse it off. easy, peasy.

One year after install and never done more than a weekly spray of Lysol and rinse.

no scrubbing at all.

I have epoxy grout and porcelain tile in my shower and with a good fan left on a half hour timer after my shower I have never had to scrub my grout after a year of praying once per week with a disinfectant and rinsing after ten minutes it looks as clean as when it was first installed.

This is about the only place I could imagine that stupid wood look porcelain being at its best use. Matched with a removable wood floor because cold stone. I finally used slick tile in my rentals. Never regretted it.

hmmm, roarah, I'll try praying, too! :-)

Hahaha! Thanks for the pic (and the laugh), roarah. It's a beautiful example of what I was looking for. Side note: What is your shower seat?

Sorry for the typo:) . The stump for my rump is a resin garden stool from homegoods...very light to move yet sturdy enough to sit on or put a leg up to shave.

We live where it's fairly damp and I don't love scrubbing grout or fighting mildew on caulk

Start with a good vent fan with a humidity detector.

Or a small dehumidifier.

So, where is the intersection of beauty and practicality?

That's well-worded. Here's what our new shower will have:

- Small tiles on the floor (for their grip /safety is a part of practicality)

- Large, simple tiles with small groutlines on the walls ... if you're looking for something fancy, you could mount them on a diagonal ... with an inset of pretty accent tile

- No window ... you're in the shower for minutes; do you really need natural light? And water always wins.

- No glass ... shower curtain instead of glass door

- A teak stool that can be moved /traded out for a hospital chair, if necessary instead of a built-in bench

- Niche storage that cannot be seen from the room itself (because once full of bottles, those aren't so lovely) ... bottles sitting on a narrow shelf of granite (instead of more tile) for easier clean-up

- Vent fan on a timer, set inside the shower

Mrspete and I have different opinions on glass vs curtain. Last year for the first time ever I installed a curtainless shower. I adore my glass and now detest my two other curtained showers. Curtain folds hold far more dirt and germs than smooth glass. It takes hours per week for me to remove, launder and rehang the curtain washable liners vs two minuets per week of squeegeeing my glass , a few seconds per shower and cleaning with an alcohol based glass cleaner once per week. Honestly two minutes maintance per week with glass vs hours per week for my other showers with curtains. Another benefit no bellowing curtain attacking me now too.

I went frameless instead of doorless because I feel drafty without an enclosure but an open shower is two minutes per week even easier.

I prefer resin, metal or plastic benches to teak. My outdoor teak shower bench looks very worn after only two summers of use and needs re oiling often, my resin bench is disinfected and wiped when I clean my shower weekly.

Have you considered using silestone or corian for the floor of the shower? I also have a removable teak bench that has built up soap scum in its grooves. Teak is not low maintenance. In my bathroom remodel, I am going put either a ledge or a niche for my foot. I haven't decided yet. First, I need to decide on the shower floor. Does anyone have experience with silestone or corian in the shower?

When we were doing our shower we considered a cast iron pan but contractor recommended small tiles so we did those - and I hate the grout cleaning! It is a beautiful shower but I'm not doing tile floor again. Our next house has a tub/shower combo in the main bathroom so we will be doing a solid surround of some kind.

With my epoxy grout my tile looks as good as the day it was grouted and I have never ever scrubbed it. The type of grout and proper slope make the difference between easy maintance and hard to control moisture buildup mold...but I do like solid surface pans too but the sizes are limited within budget and custom is out of my price range.

Curtain folds hold far more dirt and germs than smooth glass. It takes hours per week for me to remove, launder and rehang the curtain washable liners vs two minuets per week of squeegeeing my glass , a few seconds per shower and cleaning with an alcohol based glass cleaner once per week. Honestly two minutes maintance per week with glass vs hours per week for my other showers with curtains.

Question 1: When not using the shower, are you leaving the curtain in the "pulled flat" position? That'll prevent water from pooling and forming ick. I doubt any actual dirt is hanging onto your curtain; you're not rubbing up against the curtain, so how could dirt adhere to the curtain?

Question 2: Even if you were motivated to launder a shower curtain weekly, which I am not, how could it take hours? 30 seconds to pop the curtain off the rings, throw it in with a load of towels, 30 seconds to pop it back on the rings. Really, how is this time consuming?

I have glass doors in both my bathroom, and I find them more time consuming than curtains I've had in the past. I scrub them thoroughly about every three months and give them a rub-down with Rain-X, which makes the water run right off them. It's a good bit of work every couple months.

I am tall and it takes me ten minutes per shower to un attract and reattach each liner. I do close them but it is the scientifically proven large amounts of E. coli ,staph and strep I skeeve not mold.

"Have you ever noticed a thin film of pink mildew on your shower curtain? While some call it “soap scum,” scientists refer to this as “lush microbial biofilm.” (We know. Gross.) A study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology found that shower curtains are a breeding ground for microbes, including sphingomonas and methylobacterium, which can lead to infection."

biofilm grows quickest on vinyl liners , than quickly on nylon and slowly on glass.

I do not use rain X, just squeegee after shower, less than 30 seconds and wipe with alcohol cleaner weekly.

I am tall and it takes me ten minutes per shower to un attract and
reattach each liner.

Then you're using the old-fashioned dollar store shower curtain holders:

"Have you ever noticed a thin film of pink mildew on your shower curtain?

Honestly, no(and, no, I've never had a pink shower curtain). However, I did note that the article mentioned "gunk" -- my non-technical word -- building in curtains that had been left "folded" so that the area never dried. Common sense dictates using a properly-sized curtain so that it can remain dry. I remain entirely non-skeeved.

Side note: My RN daughter and Chemistry teacher SIL, both considerably more germ-a-phobic than me, both have shower curtains.

I'm still leaning towards glass doors being more work, but fortunately they sell both items at the store, so we can all have what we please.

I do not have the dollar store type, I have hot and cold not hooking porcelain ones but my corner tub /shower has double curtains so twice as many hooks.

The pink stuff is not dangerous it is the stuff you can not see if you read the ncbi study linked above any curtain vs glass harbors more germs. I have curtains on two showers and will never put glass on my main hall 1920 orginal tub but it is far cleaner and easier to have glass in my experience is my only point.

I used to hate scrubbing grout, but one thing I learned from GW is that if you give your shower/tub a quick wipe down with a microfiber cloth each time after using it, cleaning is easy no matter what material everything is made of, or whether you have glass or not.

I used to think this sounded like so much extra work, but really once you get used to it, that ≤ a minute makes a huge difference when you do the big clean. You quickly get to the point where you just don't even think about it.

Great thoughts here. Thank you so much! I've started wiping down our shower after every use just this last week and I think it's totally doable. Pretty painless, really! We're planning on a good Panasonic fan with a timer in our bathrooms and I'm going to spring for epoxy grout on the tile.

We've looked at solid surface and my husband just prefers the look of tile, honestly. I've heard mix things about shower pans but they would eliminate the pooling along the edges of a tile floor. I wish cove tiles looked better! Maybe I just need to be friendly with our tiler and request extra careful sloping because I'm the odd duck who's worried about that sort of thing! :)

I'm feeling so much better about this route after hearing from some of you with great looking showers after years of very basic maintenance.

Very handsome shower, enduring! I especially like the way the tile patterns flow like real marble.

I love your shower. Is that 12x24 tile? Can you post a picture that shows the shower pan and transition from pan to tile? ?

A solid surface shower (Corian) is the most sanitary and easiest to clean without question. No grout, no mildew ever. Some of the latest colors/patterns are amazing, like Dune Prima.

Following this thread with interest. I am in the early stages of planning a bathroom remodel and I would love to see more photos of Corian/other solid surface baths. As much as I love the look of tile, if I never scrub another grout line it will be too soon.

A solid surface shower (Corian) is the most sanitary and easiest to
clean without question. No grout, no mildew ever. Some of the latest
colors/patterns are amazing, like Dune Prima.

Question: I currently have a cultured marble surround in my shower, and the walls stay clean ... but, oh, oh, oh, the nasty lines in the corners where the pieces meet. Would Corian be the same?

Any reason you can't do Corian walls combined with a small tile on the shower floor? That might be the best of all worlds: Easy clean walls and a less slippery floor.

"but, oh, oh, oh, the nasty lines in the corners where the pieces meet. Would Corian be the same?"

Corian shower corners can be coved; no grout, no silicone. I'd hang the sheets on French cleats. Wrote a magazine article about it 15 years or so ago.

@daratwist, here is a pic of my shower pan. Of note, this is when the shower was brand new and before the doors were installed.

This is about 4 years later with my microfiber fluffy drying towel that I use daily to clean the walls and niche and glass. I clean the floor and the sweeps on the doors a few times a year. I am the only one using the shower, except for the occational guest. Otherwise the floor would need more frequent cleaning I believe. The point I'm making is that after 4 years my 12x24" porcelain tile with epoxy grout looks like the day I finished it 4 years ago:

Corian shower corners can be coved; no grout, no silicone. I'd hang
the sheets on French cleats. Wrote a magazine article about it 15 years
or so ago.

I think you've changed my mind on my shower walls.

@enduring - what grout color did you go with, do you know what your tile spacing is? I am having issues finding a tiler who wants to deal with epoxy grout.

I think I used 1/16" tile spacing. the tiles were very well made, flat and square. I used Laticret epoxy grout in a color that coordinated with the background tile color. In hind sight I would have liked to use a color to look more like a shadow, as I have lipage and I think the grout color could have visually masked the shadows cast by the lipage.