Eagle, Idaho

Large-Format Tile Shower — Eagle, Idaho

A master shower finished in 24x48 marble-look porcelain — few joints, a full-height niche column and a linear drain that let the floor pitch in one direction.

Finished Eagle, Idaho master shower tiled in 24x48 marble-look porcelain with a full-height lit niche, bench and frameless glass — Eagle master shower — 24x48 porcelain panels with sequenced veining, a lit niche column and a linear drain. Representative photography of the work described — being replaced with job-site photos from this project.

Project data

Location: Eagle, Idaho (Ada County)
Project type: Tile shower, large-format porcelain
Approximate wet area: About 45 square feet
Duration on site: Roughly three weeks
Tile: 24x48 marble-look porcelain panels, veining sequenced
Waterproofing: Foam board substrate with sealed seams and fasteners

Existing condition

A 2000s builder shower with 12x12 tile, a mud pan and a centre drain. Nothing was leaking; the finish had simply aged out and the grid of grout joints made a large shower look busy.

What the homeowners wanted

A quieter, more continuous surface with as few joints as possible, and lighting that reads well against a marble-look tile.

Scope of work

Tear-out to framing, including the old mud pan and centre drain
Foam board wall substrate with sealed seams for a dead-flat plane
Linear drain and single-direction floor slope
Sequenced layout so veining runs continuously across the back wall
Full-height niche column with integrated lighting
Bench seat clad in the same panel material
Frameless glass templated after tile

The problem we hit

Large-format tile is unforgiving. A wall that is out of plane by an eighth of an inch shows up as lippage on a 48-inch tile, and the original framing had a visible bow in the plumbing wall.

How it was solved

We furred and shimmed the framing to a dead-flat plane and used the foam board substrate to hold it, then dry-laid the panels to sequence the veining before any thinset was mixed. Back-buttering every panel and using a levelling system kept lippage inside tolerance. Big tile is mostly a substrate job, and the tile setting is the easy half.

Materials and systems

Substrate: Waterproof foam board with sealed seams and fastener treatment
Drain: Linear drain, single-direction slope
Tile: 24x48 marble-look porcelain, veining sequenced
Grout: Narrow joints, colour matched to the tile field
Glass: Frameless enclosure with a door, templated after tile

Where to go next

Questions about this project

Is large-format tile harder to keep clean?: Generally easier, because there is less grout. The trade-off is that installation tolerances are tighter and the substrate has to be much flatter, which is where the extra labour goes.
Does hard water damage marble-look porcelain?: It leaves mineral film like it does on any surface, but porcelain is not affected the way real marble is — you can clean it without worrying about etching.