Alina - we didn't do a careful job at all. I just asked a kinda slap-dash guy to throw together a bookshelf made of 3/4" pine I think. maybe even 5/8". I'm not recommending this, certainly not over what am actual cabinet maker constructs. Only, this is just not something I fussed about at all. Course, this happened early on in the experience when I knew -8b. I know more now and might be more careful about all this. And I'll show pictures because I want folks to see but ... it doesn't look very good in pictures, neither of my bathrooms does! The colors are wrong and you just can't get a sense of the feel of the room *at all*. One of my bathrooms I posted because of a problem with the vanity top and I got a little sub-enthusiasm because I know my "Style" is no way-no how GW's! I wish I *could* convey with a photo what the room actually looks like because I do really like both and think you-all would too if only I could depict it fairly! As well, over in kitchens I once set off a mild scandal-storm by showing a picture of another bathroom that contained wet footprints in it, and of my kitchen once all overflowing with a typical day's worth of chaos from a really, really busy household. I am just not living the GW life here. So - all those mea culpas aside, please understand that I do recognize my life style is perhaps a little shocking to some on this forum. As they say on the net, no one knows that you're a dog. All I can say is -- it works in person! So here's a closeup of the shelves that are smaller because of the room's configuration in one of the bathrooms. This is unfinished and unused, but we're getting closer! Darn it, I should have removed the offending personal items and put the toilet seat down for this photo, but it's now beyond a waking person's reach, if you follow: And here's an overview of the space if it helps. Please know this wall is no way so blue in reality. I'm thinking the glossiness might have caused the flash to bounce and change the color a lot? It is a little bit blue but in there it looks grey-blue: The serpentine in the niches was supposed to go on the floor, but when I went to order it, the warehouse said a hotel chain in Arizona had just bought hundreds of thousands of sqft of the stuff and it was now all gone. I was really disappointed! But I got to keep the sample and that's where it ended up. The replacement floor is more muted but it's OK, particularly given the top I was therefore able to "afford" (in the wild-stone expense account that is). For your interest, here's a shot of that wild-stone: And here's the shelf in the other bathroom. These shelves are bigger but obviously not being used to great affect at the moment. If you cared about use, appearance, efficiency, etc, you should just build the pony wall to a height that will give your bookshelves the height they want or you need. I didn't do that, just sort of fit them into a random height built to contain the tub. That was silly I suppose, but designing this was not on my mind at all at the time: Here's a shot of that space for reference: And because I posted about this problem sink of mine earlier and showed some shots of the bathroom at the time, I'll show the other wall and the new top to that problem vanity. The old problem sink is, sadly, gone (broken) and everything works *way* better. BTW, at the time someone (well-meaningly) criticized the diagonal tiling backsplash as not representing a angularity anywhere else in the room. That's not actually true, but you cannot really make it out in the photo; the entire white tiling behind the tub is on an angle and the spots are set in, therefore, at their junctions, also as an angle, a sort of "diamond on the side", as it were. What can I say -- I think it works in person. If you stare hard you can just make out the white-on-white diamond pattern of the tub. So that has white grout, the sink area blue to pick up the transluscent tiles. That luminescence also doesn't photograph well: And finally, because there was a discussion of "boob lights" elsewhere which I personally found just hilarious, I show here a shot of my decidedly not-boob lights. I can't get what they look like when turned on, they emit a slightly red and blue-green streaky white color -- it's pretty wild. Unanticipated, but really looks very cool. I picked them in large part because they worked to the *left* of the electrical box. Those got put in in the wrong place and I just didn't feel like moving them. Decorating-by-sloth. :) OK, please understand this all works better in person than in photos. I know it's a real faux pas around here to show traces of life-with-teens but I just don't have the energy to clean up behind them or for a photograph. Mea culpa!!!!

Knock yourself out then. Cement board has good compression strength so you can put just about anything on it. It isn't going to stop mold in your bathroom though. Cement is porous. While it doesn't mold itself, it will still let moisture through to the next wood surface. The only way to stop water problems is to keep the water in the tub and down the drain. If you don't do that, nothing you put under the tub is going to matter.

Sorry, I guess I should clarify. (This is why I linked the product page, because I knew I would not be able to explain this properly.) The oval tub has a "preexisting" sort-of-deck with a flange on three sides, otherwise I would not be so daft as to try to put a shower over it. I like my kitchen ceiling where it is! Here, this is what it looks like: However, and this is what I was asking about with the deck question, from the instructions it appears that there must be some kind of deck on the fourth side which does not have a tile flange if one does not use the optional (icky) apron, but it does not say how wide this deck must be. We both would rather not have to clamber over a wide margin to get into the tub - DH has to use this for showering every day. I'm mostly a lay-backer, not a sit-upper - my shoulders and upper back get very very painful so I have to get them into the scalding water. Unfortunately there isn't enough room for the 5'5" tub that would let me keep both shoulders and knees underwater and actually cover up most of the protruding bits on the front, leaving pretty much just my head and hands (to hold my book, of course) out of the water. ;-) The room is only 60" wide - it was carved out of a bedroom - and even if we had budget to redo all the plumbing there isn't room to turn the tub round sideways. I dislike the look of "stuff" cluttering up tub corners so I'm considering a down-low niche for my shampoo/soap/etc. and a high-up one for DH's shower things, and there will pretty much never be any kind of decorative bits on the corners because they'd just get soaked with the shower spray anyway. Well, okay, maybe a rubber ducky. (But no flamingos!) :-) Those four were pretty much the only tubs I've found that fit the parameters of size/depth, cost (crucial!), and appearance. I'm a short-but-wide person and DH is medium-height(5'9")-and-wide and we both manage OK in a standard 60x32 oblong tub - 34" or 36" would be a nicer but pretty much all I could find in this price point were funky molded-up things that looked like they belonged on the space station. Yuck-O. The deepest of the four tubs is actually the oblong Bancroft at 15" water depth but I'm not thrilled with how it looks, the other three are 14" water depth. The oval looks like it would have less shoulder room but that's not the case? The one oval tub I've seen available for sitting in was just about big enough for a kindergartener to do laps in, so it's pretty useless for comparison!

@pennydesign, This question is based on another plan that I'm considering where I would keep a bath/shower combo in my main bathroom, but then add an esnuite to my master bedroom with a small dedictated shower: In this layout, I would only have room for a 15" deep vanity if I want 26" between a standard 32" tub and the vanity (so every inch counts). I could move the wall behind the vanity as a last resort if needed, but I'm trying to find a way to work within the existing footprint (which is why I'm looking at a 28" wide tub). Another alternative is to put the tub along the left wall with the window, but I'm not too keen on this idea because: I don't think I'd like to shower in front of a window that faces the street, especially at night time :S I don't think I'd want to deal with cleaning waterproof blinds that get wet all the time I don't really like the idea of frosting the window so that I can't see out any more