Glass Shower - Day 138 - The garden home challenge with p. allen smith

You know that sound? Hey, if you have a glass shower like this, you never have to worry about Norman Bates or his mom sneaking up on you while you're taking a shower. They say an eco-friendly house can't be built in 150 days for $150,000, and I say it can. I'm Allen Smith, join me as I push the limits with time, budget and creativity with the Garden Home Challenge, exclusively on eHow Home. Hey, look at the shower: It's installed, and it feels pretty good in here. There's plenty of room. We finally got the glass installed, and there's several different ways you can go here: The simplest and the most traditional is the one where you just put a rod up and a shower curtain. Then you can buy showers that are pre-made and pop them in, or you can have them customized and built -- that's what we did here. And then when it comes to the wall, the glass wall, you can have it framed, as I have here, or unframed. The unframed is really cool, but it's a little more expensive if you're considering installing a shower in your bathroom, whether in a new house or a remodel. This framed one was about 20 percent less money. When they install these, they have to take very exacting measurements. In other words, you wanna be within 1/16 of an inch with your measurements to make sure that everything is plum and fits just the way it should. You're gonna wanna coordinate this with the tile layer, the plumber, and of course, the installer of the glass walls. Now let's talk about the glass itself: When you install these showers, typically what you have is a range of glass thickness from 3/8 to half inch -- what we used here is 3/8. Again, we were trying to save money. But you wanna make sure it's tempered glass. You don't want this shattering -- no reason to go there -- you can understand the disaster that could occur. And also, you can see here, you wanna make sure that you have doorstops in place, and I don't mean a cardboard box, so that the *** does not hit the glass. That is not good. So we're gonna put a doorstop here to help that. And then you need to think about how the door opens or which direction the door opens. Here, since people will be coming around this way, we wanted to open the door from the left. Here, since we have a closet door on this side, it made sense to actually put the hinging here on the left where it opens to the right where you can step in. So this is put together in way that it's very snug. There's a water sealant placed at the base and along the sides -- no chance of leaks, which is really important. One advantage to a system like this over, say, a shower curtain, is you don't get the problem of the mildew getting on the shower curtain on the inside. You know what I'm talking about. And when it comes to these metal finishes, well, you can go with anything you want: Bronze, gold -- this is sort of a pewter or nickel finish. You can get some of them that are really highly polished. This is what I chose for this room because it matches the other metal fixtures in the room. And the great thing about a shower, if you're talking about conservation, is that you're gonna conserve more water with shower than you would with a tub. Hey, if you're enjoying these updates on the house, check in with us regularly. We're about to wrap up the house and start the decorating. And make sure you subscribe to eHow Home. I'm gonna step in here and have a shower -- if I could have a little privacy.