Updated August 2024
Imagine relaxing under the shower spray before you get ready for the day, taking a few minutes before diving into your morning routine. Or picture a long, cool shower at the end of the day - the perfect way to unwind before bed. Then imagine tripping over the shampoo or constantly knocking over your skincare bottles. Slightly less relaxing, right?
Sure, there are shower caddies, bathroom containers, or storage racks to free up your floor space, windowsill, or bench, but the truth is, these are often short term solutions – they tend to rust, cause pockets of mildew, or lose their grip and fall. Bulky organizers can cramp your space, making an already small shower space feel even smaller.
The ideal solution to save space and reclaim your peaceful bathroom is a tile shower niche! This tiny detail plays a surprisingly big role in how well your shower functions. Not only is it a long term solution that prevents a jumble of bottles from taking up space in your shower, but it’s also an eye-catching design opportunity to personalize your bathroom! Built-in shower niches are a stylish and stable way to handle bathroom storage issues and create a relaxing environment all at once!
The dazzling detail of our Herringbone Pearl White Thassos Shell Tile illuminates this shower wall and beautiful niche detail!
When designing a niche; however, there are some important details to consider. If you’re ready to say goodbye to your old shower caddies and messy storage racks, here are the answers for 6 commonly asked questions about shower niches that can help you plan for success!
Experts answer 6 Questions about How to Design and Install a Tile Shower Niche
1. What Are the Advantages of a Tile Ready Shower Niche?
There are two options when it comes to building a shower niche with a nice tile design, and it’s often confusing when it comes to knowing the differences between these two. The first one is the tile ready shower niche .
The main advantage of a tile ready shower niche (a preformed niche insert) is that it’s easier to install compared to custom niches. A preformed niche comes as a sealed waterproof box, which automatically eliminates the need for a waterproofing membrane within the interior. Its surface is coated with a material that easily allows tile mortar (adhesive) to adhere to its surface.
You can find a Redi Niche tile insert with different shapes and sizes at Home Depot!
Once the tiles are laid on the insert, they create a beautifully finished niche shelving unit inset with a basketweave tile like our Basket Weave Carrara With Black Dot Polished Marble Tile!
However, these preformed niches have the disadvantage of limited size options, which affects your design flexibility and storage capacity. They usually have a predetermined depth that will affect what you can store in your niche. Although there are various sizes available for this type of shower niche, all of them are designed to fit between standard wall studs. Even the largest options may not be a convenient storage solution to meet a family’s shower storage needs.
2. Is A Custom Built-in Tile Shower Niche a Better Option?
A better solution in terms of style and function is the custom built-in shower niche, which is often the grandest statement of luxury in today’s shower designs! If you want your shower to look more like a spa than just a storage space, consider a beautifully tiled custom built-in shower niche for your shower.
This rain shower has a custom built niche that runs the width of the entire shower wall, offering ample storage space and a clean white accent to the Blue Pearl Herringbone Mosaic Tile shower wall! The statement wall and custom niche not only offers a stunning bathroom design detail, but total control over how much storage space you have in the shower!
Custom built-in niches give you the option to try the most creative shower design ideas , allowing you to add a dominant design feature in your bathroom and offer more flexible storage solutions. Built-in niches allow you to insert multiple shelves for storing items that wouldn’t normally fit in a tile ready niche.
Home with Keki offers a great step-by-step on how to create a custom shower niche and opted for a unified gray subway tile design for the shower wall and niche!
The main disadvantage for this type of niche is that it requires professional and careful construction. A waterproofing membrane must be installed on the shower walls before tiling, and construction of a parallel wall is needed if you’re designing a large horizontal niche. Several important structural measures must be taken in order to avoid grout-line cracking and failure of tile assembly - the best option is to chat with your contractor or tile setter about options before you settle on a custom niche!
Although this type is more costly, it can be well worth the added expense when redesigning your bathroom for usability and comfort. Remember that it’s always easier to let your design speak with a custom built-in niche!
3. What is the Best Wall to Mount a Shower Niche?
Picking the right wall for the niche is even more important than choosing the aesthetic, to maintain the integrity and durability of your shower wall. Before committing to a layout or design, ensure that your niche area will not interact with any plumbing or electrical behind the wall.
You’ll also want to check whether your niche is mounted on an outside wall or not. Although the general rule is to avoid placing a niche on an outside wall when you’re in a cold weather climate, we advise you not to pick an outside wall regardless of your climate conditions. It’s best to be cautious since shower niches are the best areas prone to moisture even if you build a fully waterproof one. Check out our post on avoiding moisture issues in your bathroom for more info!
4. What is the Right Size for a Shower Niche?
If you choose a custom built-in niche design over a preformed one, it can be confusing when to figure out how large you want your niche to be. There is no such thing as the ‘right size’, as it really depends on whether you prefer it horizontal or vertical, how much storage you need, and whether your priority is aesthetics or practicality.
If you opt for a custom horizontal shower niche, you can increase shower storage significantly, but some structural reinforcement of the wall will be required for longer designs.
Insets of our Diamond White Glass Pebble Mosaic Tile created a beautiful focal point for this extra-long tile shower niche with shelves for storage convenience!
If you don’t want to pay for additional structural fortifications you can still create a relatively large shower niche by extending vertically instead of horizontally! When you want to create a huge custom tiled shower niche, the amount of vertical height you could utilize is almost unrestricted from the ceiling down to the floor.
Do you need a large shower nook with plenty of storage for a large family? A vertical niche with built-in shelving will ensure that you have storage space for everyone. But if you are vertically challenged or have kids that will be using the shower regularly, consider the height accordingly to suit all your needs.
The higher your niche becomes, the larger number of shelves you can put in as well. Do you want a vertically oriented niche with multiple shelves? The key is to ensure your shelves are spaced properly within the niche to accommodate larger bottles.
5. How Can I Position a Shower Niche?
A homeowner who wants to create a shower niche that is a design showpiece will be more inclined to center their shower niche to focus on symmetry. A more practical approach would lead a homeowner to position their shower niche where products can be easily accessed, focusing less on aesthetic concerns.
If practicality is your priority, ask yourself the following questions. Are you concerned about water constantly spraying in the niche? If so, placing your shower niche further from the valve wall might be a good idea. Avoid placing your niche in the splash zone (the area near the shower head where you stand and rinse) as more moisture in a semi-enclosed space can require additional cleaning to avoid mildew.
Even if you’re not concerned about the water that collects inside the niche, it’s always best to avoid a tile shower niche in the splash zone to prevent moisture penetration into your shower stud wall. Installing your niche on the wall opposite the shower head can keep it as clean and safe as possible!
6. How Should I Style a Tile Shower Niche?
There are lots of beautifully tiled shower niches that can accent or dominate the design of your shower. You can choose to feature your niche design or hide it - the choice is yours!
There really aren’t any rules when it comes to designing a stylish shower niche. High vertical designs that feature shower niche tile with patterns or long and bold horizontal shower niches are great examples of shower niche designs that will become the star of a bathroom! For a niche that stands out even more, try to mix and match materials, patterns, and colors. Don’t be afraid to use bullnose tile trim and pencils around your niche – this is a great way to frame your artwork, as well as add depth and extra visual interest. Check our blog for tile trims if you’re not sure how to incorporate different types of trims into your tile design!
A customer shared their recent install of our Blue And White Hexagon Glass Mosaic Tile to create this beautiful accent niche! Pair it with La Riviera Blanc 2.5x8" to create a Zellige subway tile wall and play off those beautiful blue tones!
On the flip side, using the same tile can make your shower niche blend in inconspicuously for a more monochromatic style. We totally understand if you prefer a built-in niche for practical reasons and prefer to keep it simple. If that’s your style choice, choose shower niche tile that will match the surrounding tiles in the area. This allows your niche to blend into the wall and disappear, instead of disturbing the tile design you already have for the space. To keep the look subtle, consider placing your shower niches symmetrically on the shower wall.
Whether your style is bold and contrasting or chosen to match your shower wall, we always recommend selecting tile that is rated for the shower. Shower wall and floor tiles are rated differently so be sure to check them independently!
This niche by Parker and Parker Design paired gray hexagon inset tiles with a marble tile wall to create this tone-on-tone look with a fun little detail! We’d pair our2 Inch White Carrara Hexagon Polished Marble Mosaic Tile and Bianco Carrara 12X24 Polished Marble Tile to create this classic shower wall design!
A tile shower niche may seem like a tiny detail, but it can play a big role in how well a shower functions. Since minimalist bathroom designs with clear glass surrounds and open showers are so popular today, the niche has become an even more important design opportunity to showcase your style!
Once you've settled on the size, shape, and location of your tile shower niche, browse our selection of shower tile designs to find the perfect finishing touch!
Whether you were already considering a shower niche or are just now inspired to create one, we hope that these 6 questions about tiled niches helped guide you in the right direction. If you have any other questions, we’re here to help! Please use the comment section below to ask your questions or even share your ideas!
