Fox - Question about Shower access panel

[sugardumpling]

Hi FIF. I showed DH your access panel. Can you tell me how you built it and how you are covering it on the toilet side?

TIA!

[FoxInFiji]

Hi! Sorry I didn't have time to respond yesterday I've been slammed with work since being gone for 3 weeks (traveling for work and vacation).

The access panel we made was out of paint grade plywood and then we attached the vertical stiles of the wainscotting on top of the plywood edges to hide the seam. The plywood sits on a strip of drywall behind the trim that was cut to be a 1/2" shorter than the trim. So the bottom seam is hidden as well. The top seam is the only one you can see and we put that right up under the wainscotting top rail which is deeper and hides the seam pretty well. Then we fastened a magnetic clasp that you push to pop open or close but even with the biggest one we could find it wasn't strong enough for the weight of the access panel so we ended up just putting one screw in the corner right under the rail. We painted the screw head white to blend in with the wall and more or less it's not noticeable.

So here is the access panel closed (I have another layer of paint to put on):

You can see the screw in the top right corner but you can't see the seam unless you get down under the rail.

Here is the access panel open:

See how the vertical stiles aren't on the wall. That's because they are attached to the access panel overlapping the seams. They also are cut shorter than the panel to sit on top of the baseboard when in place.

Does that make sense? I should take some more pictures with the access panel partly open. That would probably help.

[simpsongal]

That looks awesome Fox! Love the floor. I can't wait to do something similar in our master bath

[sugardumpling]

FIF - Thanks so much. It looks amazing. I wish you lived closer to me. I can only imagine the ideas you would have for my house.

[FoxInFiji]

Sept 20, 2012 12:26:34 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

That looks awesome Fox! Love the floor. I can't wait to do something similar in our master bath

Thanks. It's an American Olean tile called Catarina but they don't make it anymore unfortunately. Luckily there are a number of nearly identical tiles from other manufacturers. The gray and white marble look on porcelain is very popular because it's so low maintenance. Initially I was worried white floors would look dirty really quickly but the gray veining really hides a lot and the XL tiles make it a breeze to clean. I'll have more pictures on my blog soon hopefully.

[FoxInFiji]

Sept 21, 2012 10:07:27 GMT -5 sugardumpling said:

FIF - Thanks so much. It looks amazing. I wish you lived closer to me. I can only imagine the ideas you would have for my house.

No problem. Like I've said on here before that big access door saved us later when we figured out the plumber mixed up the hot and cold lines. We didn't dare turn on the water until we did the finish plumbing and waterproofing first so if it wasn't for the access door it could have cost us a lot to fix it. And no the thermostatic mixing valve wasn't working properly with them reversed so it wasn't a matter of just getting used to it being in reverse order.

LOL it's funny you say that because just today I was at a fellow GBCN's house for lunch looking at paint colors for her house. She had to talk me off the ledge on my master bathroom selections because I was suddenly stressing that the quartz we ordered didn't go well enough with the accent tile I bought. Hopefully it wall all look fine. *crosses fingers*