Full Bathroom Reno Day 14: How to Tile Wall in Shower with Stacked Stone and Cut Holes for Plumbing

I'm happy to report that we're getting much closer to a fully tiled shower! We completed the tiling on the back wall the day before, and now we've completed the tiling on the front wall, where the showerhead and faucet live. This time, however, we used a different thinset.

 



 

We used the rest of the previous thinset on the back wall, and I went to purchase some more. However, I went to a different store, and this was the only option they had. It's premixed as opposed to having to mix it yourself, which Jake literally cheered for when I told him. It also is a much lighter and fluffier consistency, which made it much easier to apply to the wall. The previous thinset we used was hard to mix, hard to apply to the wall, and hard to press the tile into.

 

Since this thinset had almost a whipped quality, it glided on. The only con to it was that since it was a lighter consistency, it squeezed up through the cracks variations in the tile. To remedy this, I just went back with a tiny flathead screwdriver (also pink!) to scrape out the excess that came through. This wasn't difficult at all, just nit-picky and time consuming. Overall, though, we both greatly preferred this thinset to our old one!

We made sure to measure and cut appropriately sized holes for the showerhead, faucet, and handle hardware and plumbing.

 

Soon enough, we were done with the front shower wall tiling.

 

 

Here's another close-up, and one of the things that sold me the most on this tile. I love the overall lighter color and variation, as I said before, but my absolute favorite part are these light pieces with the gorgeous copper veining!

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So pretty, right? They will tie in beautifully with our copper sinks!