Some bathrooms date themselves the moment you walk in. This West Vancouver ensuite was one of them: blue walls, a bulky built-in tub on a raised deck, and an acrylic shower stall you had to step up into, sitting on a raised platform behind glass. The homeowners wanted the opposite — a calm, luxurious room where the shower simply flows from the floor, with no curb, no step, and no threshold.
Twenty days later, the same room has a freestanding clawfoot bathtub with gold feet, a level-entry curbless shower behind clear tempered glass, brushed-gold fixtures, and a black-and-white checkerboard floor that runs straight into the shower without a single break.
The part everyone thinks is hard: removing the step
Ask most people why they don’t have a curbless shower and they’ll say the floor has to be rebuilt — joists cut, structure modified, weeks of extra work. That used to be true. The traditional way to recess a shower floor meant cutting or notching joists, or building a lowered frame out of ledger boards inside the floor.
On this project we used the Schluter KERDI-SHOWER-FRS floor recessing system instead. Galvanized steel brackets mount from above, between and across the joists, and lower the shower floor by 11/16″ (17.5 mm) — exactly the depth the shower assembly needs — without cutting or notching a single joist. The photo below is the view from the ceiling underneath: brackets in place, and the plumbing and heating duct running through the floor completely untouched.
Plywood panels drop into the brackets to form the recessed subfloor, and the prefabricated shower tray sits inside the recess, so the finished shower floor lands perfectly flush with the bathroom floor.
Waterproofing and heat, wall to wall
With the structure done, the whole shower was waterproofed with the Schluter KERDI membrane system — walls, base, corners and seams — so the shower is a single sealed assembly rather than tile and grout alone. The bathroom floor got DITRA-HEAT electric heating, and because the shower entry is level, the warmth runs right up to the glass: no cold curb to step over on a winter morning in West Vancouver.
The finished room
The checkerboard floor is the detail that makes the curbless design obvious: the large black-and-white tiles flow from the bathroom straight into the shower, with the cuts converging neatly on the central drain. No curb, no lip, no visual break — the shower reads as part of the room, and the whole space feels bigger.
Inside the shower, glossy cream tiles, a double tiled niche, and brushed-gold rain and handheld fixtures keep the classic-meets-modern feel of the clawfoot tub. A new double vanity with white cabinetry, gold hardware, and arched mirrors finished the room.
Project facts
- Location: West Vancouver, BC
- Duration: 20 days
- Investment: $35,000
- Scope: Full bathroom renovation — freestanding clawfoot tub, curbless level-entry shower with tempered glass, heated floors, full Schluter waterproofing, double vanity.
Is a curbless shower right for your bathroom?
If your shower has a curb or a step you dislike — or you’re planning a bathroom you can use comfortably for decades, including as mobility changes — a curbless conversion is usually more straightforward than it sounds. With modern recessing systems, the structure of your floor stays intact, and most of the work is the same waterproofing and tiling a quality shower needs anyway.
Thinking about it for your home? Get a free, no-obligation estimate: call (778) 855-6606, or try our bathroom renovation cost calculator to see what your project might cost.