Hi Mabies,

Is this for a shower or a tub? What kind of surface are you using on the walls? I am a convert to niches. We built a four foot long 8" deep cultured marble shelf (Shower is also CM, walls and base) in our first BR reno, and in our present Master BR we built a tiled niche with two shelves, just under 30" wide, and they're almost full already.

If you can swing it, I would suggest you try and build some niches vs corner shelves or baskets.

Posted simultaneously with the previous post, so the same advice :)

Regarding soap dishes... Our Grohe slider bar has an optional soap dish. You can mix and match bars and shower heads with most Grohe products. And, you can add a soap dish. It can swing left or right, and the IMPORTANT thing about it is that soap drips do not run down the wall the way they used to with the old ceramic tile in-the-wall-soap dishes. You could also use it for a plastic shower pouf to drip dry. On shelves, they drip down over the edge and down the wall.

I like shower niches to keep bottles of things.

-Babka

Here is a link that might be useful: Soap dish on the slider bar.

I like niches if possible. I use a waterfall soap dish in our shower niche. No soap drips, no troubles keeping it clean, no mushy soap.

Here is a link that might be useful: Waterfall soap saver

The Waterfall Soap Saver looks AWESOME!!! Put one right into my Amazon cart.

In our shower, we have a corner ceramic soap shelf, rounded at the edge. For some reason the water doesn't drain out of it very well (possibly installation-error as this was DIY). I like that it makes things convenient, but I try not to put soap on it b/c it will melt away in the standing water. In a way it is redundant b/c we also have a pre-formed Swanstone niche in the shower as well.

I like the pre-formed niche a lot, it is VERY easy to clean and was easy to DIY install. The soap doesn't slip out of it and there are little ridges that allow the soap to dry. I think the integrated tiled niches look great and I would do that if I were having the bathroom tiled by a pro. But if it's DIY, I think the Swanstone is an excellent choice. We are currently remodeling our main bathroom, and bought an identical Swanstone shampoo/soap niche for the bath/shower combo b/c we love the one we installed in our master shower.

Edit -- > we chose the matte white color, I think a lot of the other colors look oddly man-made. If it's going to look man-made, I like white ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Swanstone shampoo shelf

This post was edited by melle_sacto on Thu, Mar 20, 14 at 13:01

In our kids' bathroom, we installed a corner basket by Ginger. I love it! It's so easy to clean, and is very sturdy. Ours is chrome...I don't know if other finishes are as easy to keep clean. We've had a small niche in another bathroom, more like a recessed soap dish, but I thought it was incredibly difficult to keep clean. With the basket, the water drains away, and it always seems to look great.
We're planning our master bath now, and I haven't decided if we'll use a basket or a niche. Whichever one we choose, I want to make sure it's not a focal point, because I don't think bottles, etc. are ever pleasant to look at. So I guess I'll pick whichever option I can use that can be put in a spot that's not as visible.

I may have the same Ginger corner basket as elijays. I also love it because it's attractive yet functional. For our minor remodel, I plan on keeping it, although we'll be adding an alcove.

Mine is two levels, like this one:

Here is a link that might be useful: Gatco corner shower shelves

Here's a link to ours. We didn't pay that much though!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ginger shower basket

We have two of the Ginger Splashables baskets - one in a tub alcove and one in a shower. Ours is not a corner version - see picture. We like them, but I'm not a fan of niches (I did love our full-length ledge in our previous home but that wasn't an option here due to the shower being smaller).

Thanks for the feedback! we ordered a large basket for the less visible corner and a smaller corner basket for soap.

Now if we could figure out our tile :-)!