All You Need To Know About Niches

What is a Niche?

In bathroom terms, a Niche is a recessed shelf in a shower or bath installation. The word Niche (pronounced “neesh”) is French and simply means recess. It originates from the Latin nidus meaning “nest”. It originally described recessed shelving in architecture that housed statues and ornaments.  

When we are stripping out a bathroom for renovation, it gives us the opportunity to nog behind the gib, where the framing is for a Niche (or two)! Having one in your shower gives you extra storage, and style. Depending on what look you are after, we can install an acrylic niche into your tiled shower as is but for that extra luxurious look, we recommend continuing the tiles through the Niche.

You may see most Niches in tiled showers, but you can actually install a Niche into an acrylic shower too. Acrylic showers generally come in two options for shelving, when you purchase them. “Flat” showers are simply ones that don’t have any built in shelving into the white acrylic liner or backing. “Moulded” acrylic showers are ones that have shelving moulded into the liner. Quite often these moulded showers protrude outwards rather than recess into the wall. Of course they give you a substantial amount of shelving but the con of this means that it would affect the framing location too much to be viable for recessed shelving moulded into the liner.

The Niches we use come in a variety of sizes and can be installed horizontally or vertically for a different appearance or to fit a different space.

If you are renovating your bathroom it is definitely worth considering installing a Niche as it is the opportune time to do it. We especially recommend it if you are after a tiled shower.