Dreaming of my dream shower.

 Hello Friends.  As I begin thinking about what next project to work on in the house, one thing is certain, the long goal will be to get to the kitchen.  But before I can get to the kitchen, I have a few projects that must be completed before this for logistic reasons.  One of these that I need to work on is the master bath.  Originally when the house was built, it only had 1 indoor bathroom on the 2nd floor.  A luxury for the time of course, but not so functional today.  At some point, one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor had been plumbed in for a bathroom, but not entirely completed.  It has a nice big clawfoot tub it in, but has room for a stand up shower.  I knew I would want a shower and of course with my obsessive desire to have everything old, I knew not any shower would do, but I needed a needle shower. 

What is a needle bath or shower you ask?  Well it's this device.  Sometimes call a rib cage shower.  It has these semi circular bars that shoot out jets of water onto your body, allegedly like needles, to stimulate your internal system.  Along with the rain fall shower head, these things used large pipes and large amounts of water to spray and cover every piece of you in sensation.  You could use it only with the shower head, or just the needles or the whole thing.  The ultimate in luxury and cleanliness. 

These are absolutely NOT easy to find nor are they cheap, so when I found one for sale in Texas (remember I am in Minnesota), I could not let the opportunity pass me up.  I bid at auction and won this exact L. Wolff Shower.

Tiny holes in the horizontal bars spray out water on you.  It also came with the marble walls, but sadly no base which is a different problem I am trying to solve. 

A similar shower to mine made by Speakman. 

The base was made of marble and had a groove for the walls to sit into.  Along with that a small lip edge in the pan to funnel water to the drain.  I have two options.  I have been in touch with some specialized marble fabricators who say they can make the base for me.   This is my ideal method so that it's looking as it originally did.  This does worry me however because new marble slabs are not as thick as the original so I am concerned how water tight I can get it, with no groove for the walls to sit into. 

The other option I could do is this.  Just make a tile shower pan.  The rest of the master bathroom floor is wood, so I wonder how a tile shower pan would look around the wood floors in the room.  I would ideally also like to add a glass door to the shower, since I suspect this was get water everywhere when it's running.   So I have some challenges to think of.  This is a monumental project to say the least.  It will not only require plumbing lines that are 3/4" so supply the volume of water, but apparently these use up the hot water quickly too, meaning my tank could drain quite quickly.  Does this mean I need a hot water on demand unit for this too?  Oh the joys of owning an old house and having to do things my way. I can't wait to see what I come up with, but for now, the shower is just a dream, sitting in my garage until the day I can bring it back to life, hopefully soon.