- 1). Remove your shower fixtures, leaving the pipes in place. Remove the fiberglass, plastic or whatever surface previously covered the shower walls. Clean the walls and make sure they're flat.
- 2). Measure across one of the walls and mark the middle of it. Hold a level vertically at the middle mark and draw a vertical line from bottom to top.
- 3). Spread thin-set mortar over the bottom section of the wall with a notched trowel, covering it from the floor up by 2 or 3 feet.
- 4). Hang the bottom row of tiles first, pressing the first two of them on either side of the vertical line at the middle of the wall, with the bottom edges of the tiles almost sitting on the floor. Put spacers below the tiles to separate them from the floor, and between the tiles to separate them from each other.
- 5). Work your way out from the middle to the sides for the bottom row, putting spacers between and below all of them. With a tile saw, cut the tiles at the ends to fit.
- 6). Repeat the process for the next, higher row, again starting at the center line and working to the sides. Build up the wall row by row, cutting around the shower fixtures as needed with your tile saw.
- 7). Do all the walls. Let the tiles set for a day. Pull out the spacers.
- 8). Grout each wall starting at the top and working down, pressing the grout into the lines between the tiles with your grout float and scraping it off the surface. Grout all the lines except the edges of the walls, where they meet the floor and each other. Wipe up the residual grout with a dampened sponge.
- 9). Allow the grout to dry for a full day. Use your caulk gun to run smooth, unbroken beads of caulk along the edges of the walls where they meet the floor and each other. Let the caulk and grout dry for at least two more days before resuming use of the shower.
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