Shower remodeling materials

[ksanders]

Lets talk about matertials that others have used or contemplated using to remodel the showers on your boat.

Right now my boat has two showers. Each one is constructed with what appears to be plywood that has vinyl wallpaper glued to it. We all know this is not a great construction technique, but it has lasted almost two decades.

I want to refinish the shower, and am considering my options.

One choice would be to remove the wallpaper, and glue something to the existing walls if there is no moisture damage. Formica comes to mind for this purpose.

If there is moisture damage I could replace the wall material and clad it with something. This is where I’d like to ponder the choices.

One suggestion is to replace the walls with a product that is constructed of a substrate that already has a finished surface. There are several on the market one being FIBO which is a marine grade plywood clad in a tile look plastic.

I just had a shower at my house redone and the tile guy replaced the whole wall facing with a foam product from the Schluter company. This is it appears the state of the art in tile work right now. This “foam board” is light weight and 100% waterproof. I could then adhere anything to it including tile. That would be heavy though as the tile for my home shower was several hundred pounds.

What have you guys used or considered for a shower remodel?

 

[bshanafelt]

re-did mine with FRP panels. lots of weird cuts, so used cardboard to make templates.
just glue it right to your sound substrate.

Make sure to bed the corners well with sealant & it will last a long time.

I had looked at using corian or other panels, but found them to be prohibitively expensive.

 

[tiltrider1]

My old uniflite had vinyl wall paper coated shower stall. The wall paper is now 30 years old and still doing the job. I would call that a successful product.

Skinning the wall with Formica is one solution, fairly simple, downside would be the likelihood of the Formica pulling away from the wall in various places. You will need to seal the corners with some form of caulking.

Coating the wall with epoxy and then finishing with a two part paint is another option, more labor intensive but easier to refurbish later.

You could tile it, never my choice on a flexible boat.

 

[Capitaine R]

I just finished replacing part of the floor in the head with Marine grade plywood which I glassed over and then applied a white gelcoat. Although there was no problem with the shower stall my wife has asked me to smooth out the shower walls to make it easier to clean. The walls are rough fiberglass over wood. I have started to sand down the walls and to use a fairing compound the smooth out the walls. After I sand down the fairing agent I plan to use a bright white gelcoat with wax on all 3 walls. I will most likely polish out the gelcoat to a nice shiny surface. Like most marine shower stalls the walls have too many angles which would end up with too many joints to keep water tite if I were to try to use some kind of wall board.

 

[psneeld]

I just used those pebble like FRP panels from Home Depot/Lowes. (bulkhead on left best example...storage area behind shower is white plexi doors)


Liquid mails and a pair of heavy scissors/shears to cut the stuff.


Used a RV shower pan to replace the mini tub I removed.

 

[ksanders]

Very cool guys, please keep the ideas coming!