sounds like a dilemma, for sure.

I would not like the spray on the door.

I also don't want to see all the stuff in the niche when I enter the room.

I prefer the niche under the wall mounted shower head so I can access easily... and keep the beautiful, expensive tile the focal point with a minimum of added hardware.

not any help, I know, it's a shame you have to accept someone (a professional) elses screw up.

@bpath what is the blue mark near the toilet? I was concerned about switching the bench b/c it would block the entrance to the shower. Are you suggesting a hinged shower door?

@Lyn Nielson, I agree. I think the niche is better under the fixed showerhead. Oh, and don't get me started on their proposed tile layout! It's...not great. They are good at making buildings, though, that part I'm happy with!

The blue by the toilet is a wall, wide enough to hold the controls. We can turn on the controls from the open door, so the warm water is already flowing before we step in. And room for a hook where the bath rug dries between showers, and where we hang our bath towels so they are handy when we step out of the shower (the rest of the time they dry and hand on towel bars under the window, just like where your window is.) The result is a bathroom almost identical to ours.

We do have a hinged door. to the left of the door, by the bench, is a narrower panel of glass (happily, it is exactly the width of my squeegee!)

We did not design this bathroom but i like it very much. I’m happy to have the shower head and controls hidden behind the wall by the toilet. Instead of a niche there are two corner shelves, which of course are not sufficient, so we have a lucite basket for the other shampoo and bodywash on the bench.

we have similar issues in a new construction project. On one of our exterior walls they will furr out a "false wall" in front for the plumbing/showerhead. We also have rain showerhead from the ceiling so it won't be spraying on the glass. Would you be able to do any of these options to keep the showerhead where you originally wanted it?

Put a standard shower head line in the ceiling or make it a rain shower.
Or put the shower head in the interior wall near the corner of the outside wall and angle it.
Or furr out the outside and install the shower head and only insulate behind the pipe.

I like the idea of furring out the wall to hold the shower head and putting controls on a pony wall and using a hinged door. Then put your handheld near the bench.

May I say...I do not like niches in a shower. You go through all this decision making choosing tile, where to position it, on and on. Then, you realize it is just another (gunky) space to clean.

I'm not answering your question. Installing your niche on the wall opposite the shower head can keep it as clean and safe as possible!

Where would you it that stuff … on the floor?

In my house everyone puts their stuff on the grab bar I installed. A niche might save someone’s life.
My daughter’s friend slipped in the tub and had to learn how to speak, postponing college for three years.
Don’t wait for someone else to protect you.

I didlike nicehs and in our home we have international students who share a bathroom and no shampoo bottles left in the space they each have a caddy the bring and leave with I bathe in that bathroom and my stuff is in the cabinet.As for the rest I like removeable stools not benches and I think the controles need to be at the entry and I like the idea of the rain shower from the ceiling and maybe the hand held on the wall by the bench

I like niches. I designed them for our old house. This house, the bathrooms are not worth redoing just to get niches, when they have corner shelves. Like many things, where to put toiletries is a matter of preference.

I had done fancy niches in my previous house. For the current house I wanted to simplify my tile design choices and the tile work. I used shower baskets. Mine are from Kartners and they come in different size, styles and finishes.

Master shower is large, so I have 1 of these, 2 corner ones and a soap dish, spread around the shower. I also have them placed behind wing/pony walls, so they aren't visible unless you are inside the shower.

Guest showers have just one.

That's a cool alternative, @chispa; those are pretty showers!

As a few of you have suggested, I like the idea of furring out and insulating the outside wall or even extending the interior wall into the shower (it's a long shower and it's okay if I lose a little space). I'd still be kind of concerned about freezing, though.

As for niche or no-niche, I don't have one now, and I would find it useful. It wouldn't mess up my tile design. I don't keep a lot of stuff in the shower, so it doesn't have to be huge.

@bpath any chance you could post a photo of your setup?

I’ll take a picture in the morning.

A shower head above the mixer is for a tub shower where the mixer can be adjusted from outside of the shower.
In a shower stall the mixer should be elsewhere and out of the water spray if possible.

I agree with Bpath about making that a pony wall by the toilet and doing a swing door instead. You could put the controls on the pony wall so you don’t have to lean all the way in to turn on the shower. I wouldn’t want the shower head on the outside wall. How would you get in without getting splashed all over as you enter the shower?

I did not do niches, but I did do a full width shallow shelf high up out of the direct spray in each bath shower. In one bathroom I did a grab bar high up to use as a shelf. where the bottles balance on it, but no water will sit on a shelf. That one isn't meant to be a grab bar, just a sturdy place to put things or hang a bathmat. (There are grab bars in the proper location as well.)

All good advice, thank you. Yes, I'd prefer not to have to walk into the shower to turn on the water, so having it to one side or the other of the door would be best. I'm discussing with the architects tomorrow, and hopefully this can all be worked out easily.

A couple of people mentioned a rain shower, but I find that those don't work well for me for washing my hair.

Would you put the handheld shower directly next to you when you're sitting on the bench? I was thinking it should go just in front of the bench and on my right side. The architect put it in a niche directly next to the bench, which I think makes it harder to use on the bar, if I wanted to direct the spray somewhere and use it hands-free.

rickie, here is my bathroom. Remember, I did not design it, and there are a coupld of design things I’d have done differently, but I like the layout. The controls are on the back side of the wall with the hook. There is a convenient cabinet spanning the two walls above the toilet.

I notice that you want the bench for sitting on. I don’t know if our quarter-circle corner bench is designed for that, I’ve never needed to try it, but it is a handy place for my little basket of shampoo. The two small corner shelves at the showerhead end hold soap and my spray bottle of daily cleaner, blissfully out of sight, as are the showerhead and controls.

The handsprayer is on the same wall as the showerhead. Personally, I don’t find shower hardware to be worth seeing, so I am very happy to have them tucked away.

@bpath thank you for posting the image-- What a nice setup! It's much easier to understand the layout when I see it.

I have a rainshower, which I love, but low water pressure so not enough force to rinse my hair. I also have a hand held used for that . The handheld can easily be plumbed on the pony wall and the holder then placed on any wall.

@Olychick yes, i can't be sure of our water pressure as we'll be on well water.

What would you think of the shower drain being underneath the bench? It's a shelf-style bench, but I'm a little concerned having to bend down under the bench to access the drain or to clean. But maybe that's not a problem. They're trying to avoid putting it right where a person would stand for a shower.

Conferred with the architect, and the main showerhead and controls will now go on the outside wall, which will be furred. So, opposite end of the shower from the bench. And there will be a hinged door.

Our master bath shower is 4X4.5 feet. When looking at it straight on through the glass door, the door opens in/out on the left side. The shower head and handheld were installed on the left shower wall, and the control is on the right pony wall. There are two niches on each side of the control So when you want to turn the shower on, yo open the door, reach in, and turn the water on. I hate seeing niches visible when looking into a shower, so putting them on the right side hides them from view when entering the bathroom.

I wondered whether the bench should be on the outside wall and the showerhead opposite, in other words flipped. I suggested it, but then the glass panel to the left of the door hinge would need to be deeper to accomodate the foot-deep bench, and the shower controls would have to be above the bench, which would be awkward to access from outside the shower. There's no pony wall planned on either side, just glass.

We worked out that there will be a niche to one side below the main showerhead, and one above the bench, both of which will be fairly hidden from view in that they're on the side walls, whereas the main (large) wall is the focal point.

@rockybird thank you for the photos, very helpful to see. I love your tile!

I was able to get the architect to make the shallow glass next to the hinged door into wall instead. The vertical grab bar can go on that wall, which is only 6" deep (you can't see that in this view), and the shower controls are on the perpendicular wall, so I should be able to stand in the doorway and reach in and turn on the shower and/or hold onto the grab bar while entering the shower.

We are going back and forth about the size of the niches. This, to me, is way too tall. They said it was for symmetry and modern design, but I'm looking at function, and even with a 9ft ceiling, who needs a 3ft niche?

Going back to the drain question, don’t put it under the bench unless the bench is removable. You want to be able to get in to it easily to clean it.

For the niche, kind of like planning your closets, you need to plan for the things you will keep there, and how easy is it to access them. Will you have a bottle of shampoo? what type and size of bottle? We like our pump bottle, but it’s a little bigger than the round bottles and of course needs space for your hand above it. Or maybe you use bar shampoo? Conditioner? Do you both use different products? What about soap, body wash, scrubs? Do you shave in the shower? Even if you don’t keep all your products in there, they need at least a place to be during the shower.

So, get out your ruler, figure out what space you need. And what will the tile be? Maybe design the niche to take advantage of tile size, and vice versa.

@rockybird great bathrooms, pretty tile.

@bpath I did that--measured all the stuff I store in the shower, which is not that much stuff, really. And it's all under a foot tall (no pump bottles), which is why I questioned the need for such a tall niche.

Yes, I've asked them to move the drain because it feels too awkward to get to under there. They don't want to put it where I'd be standing for the shower, so probably the better spot is somewhere in front of the bench, a little beyond where my feet would go if I'm sitting, but not where I'd be standing if I used the bench to prop a foot up to shave. The placement is not as simple as I first thought...

I had selected tile, and the niche was going to be a solid color that picked up a color from some patterened tiles, but once we fiddled with the overall tile layout and tried different approaches, it was clear that what I had imagined was not going to work, so I'm revisiting that decision.

This might sound odd, but it may be easier to clean a taller niche than a shorter one. Whatever you use to clean, cloth, sponge, scrubby, will have more maneuvering room in a larger niche. (I know, I think of strange things, but this is coming from cleaning a window today: it’s so much easier to clean the larger panes than the smaller ones lol)

with a foot deep bench at the short end on the right

I think a foot is kinda shallow for a bench ... I'd add 3"- 4" for comfort. Measure your kitchen chairs and see how deep they are. I suspect they're about 14"- 16" deep.

I like the idea of a teak stool instead of a built-in bench. This means you can move it around, if needed.

In the picture with the blue, you're showing the bench at the bottom of the shower? No, the shower heads won't reach. Another reason to go with a stool.

There are sliding glass doors

You're going with a curbless shower ... but are putting a door on it? The whole purpose of curbless is super-easy entry. Aren't most curbless showers open-doored?

I had thought the main showerhead would go on the lefthand short wall, with the controls, and the handshower would go on the right end of the long wall, next to, and just in front of, the bench.

Good plan. Be sure they're on separate controllers, and definitely place the controllers where they can be turned on without entering the shower.

Don't assume you and the contractor are on the same page.

Then they could put the niches on that same wall, above the bench.

For such a long shower, I'd lean towards a ledge instead of a niche. It could look good with a wide window above it.

Take a look right now at what's in your shower; don't clean it out, and certainly don't look at staged magazine pictures ... no, look at what you really use. Right now my shower contains 2 large pump-top bottles of shampoo and conditioner + 2 small bottles of specialty shampoo + 1 container of face wash + a bar of soap. A 12" niche isn't enough.

The handshower would go a foot or so in front of and next to the bench (not directly beside it)

Yes, think about sitting on the bench ... would the hand shower be within easy reach? Definitely go with a hand held on a sliding rod so you could reach it while standing or sitting.

Are you suggesting a hinged shower door?

I'd go with a sliding shower door. Why? Because with a sliding door you have easy access to the wall /towel bars.

The blue by the toilet is a wall, wide enough to hold the controls.

I like the wider wall by the toilet ... sitting on the toilet next to a glass wall seems odd.

Then, you realize it is just another (gunky) space to clean.

You've gotta put your stuff somewhere. Yes, it'll require cleaning ... what doesn't? But, if designed right, it can be made easier: Insist upon a solid bottom to the niche, and make sure it's slightly slanted so the water will run out /not pool and become gunk.

in our home we have international students who share a bathroom and no shampoo bottles left in the space they each have a caddy the bring and leave with I bathe in that bathroom and my stuff is in the cabinet.

Sure, it's possible, but I'd much, much rather have my stuff in my own shower.

I also have them placed behind wing/pony walls, so they aren't visible unless you are inside the shower.

I agree hiding the shelves in a pony wall is ideal, but in this long shower that'd mean shoving them allll the way to one end near the toilet.
A couple of people mentioned a rain shower, but I find that those don't work well for me for washing my hair.

Rain showers aren't meant to be primary showerheads /aren't meant for hair washing; rather, they're meant to be an add-on for a quick rinse or just standing under.
What would you think of the shower drain being underneath the bench?

Um, back to the stool idea. A drain can be placed under a stool without issue.

I like that long recessed ledge! It will also be easy to clean, you can just move things over, clean, and move them back, instead of setting them...somewhere else…and putting them back.

Funny enough my architect suggested both the teak bench and the ledge earlier today! I think a ledge would go above the bench, since part of the goal is to not look at the shampoo shelf all the time. I don't keep a lot of stuff in the shower. Literally 3 bottles, a small tub-style conditioner, a bar of soap, and a razor. However, if I were to be even temporarily disabled, I could see needing more stuff in the shower, so it's good to have some extra storage space. I think I'd get a bench that attaches to the wall and folds down. Then I could still put the drain where it's out of the way.

I did originally have a sliding door that attached from above, but we changed to a hinged door because I thought that would allow the bench to go on the left. Since that isn't happening I may be able to go back to a sliding door.

I saw this bathroom on Zillow. I like how the bench ”continues” on the outside of the glass.

@bpath is there a link?

Hmm, I thought I attached it but was on my hotspot, which plays tricks on me. I added it to that comment above.

What about a teak bench that hinges down from the wall? That way, the bench can be raised when you need to access the drain under it. Another drain idea is to have a linear drain along the length of the shower. The hair basket is at the center of the linear drain, away from a bench.

@bpath, thank you for photo, that is a cool way to do it. My toilet would be right on the other side of the glass so it doesn't work for me, but if I do a ledge rather than a niche over the bench, the architect proposed something like extending the ledge through the glass and above the toilet, if I understood correctly.

@midcentura, yes that is exactly what I'm considering. I like the benches that fold down, because you don't have to look at the hardware underneath, vs those that fold up. I kind of like this one:

You know, just thinking of aging in place, a fold down bench works in case someone in a shower wheelchair needs to be rolled in.