His proposition was to cut a tile piece and use as cover. But that corner, eeek!

I found this instead. Perplexed it is said to be outdated.

Rather have either of these. Thoughts or comments???

There is so much wrong in those pictures that there is no chance that anything was done correctly that cant be seen.

Fire that hack and get him out of your house. Immediately. That is a gut redo. All the way down to the incorrect type of tub to be used in a tub shower.

Behind every hack job I find, there is an appealing price point.

Next time use a Schluter profile. Google Schluter.

Just WOW!! Can't help but feel like a sucker now. All your input is very helpful, so thank you for that. Wishing I had known sooner, but feeling its NOT to late.

As a result of area flooding result we are rebuilding. We rushed to clear out before mold set in, then also found termite damage. After removing the bad stuff came the search for reputable workers and as with everything quote shopping. We have seen horror stories from neighbors; from jobs left half done to nobody wanting to take the work. We ended up hiring someone we already knew; in the line of work (not cheap IMO) & I feel has come through for us. My husband works out town and kids and I relocated close for now with family. I do make it a point to go over often to take pictures & see the pogress. In our situation I've had to confide in the contractor, although I'll share I was leary going in at first (its in my nature).

More than the edge concern now is IF the cement board is waterproof? Should it have been treated before tiling???

Here are more images before cement board (not backer, my bad) went up placed over sheetrock.

That tub is OK - it has a lip.

You will need some sort of finished edge in a number of places, not just this edge. Tile places will sell Schluter profile, which is a plastic or metal piece that fits under the tile creating an edge. The plastic comes in white, grey, black and beige at our store and a number of different metal finishes. But I didn't like the thought of edging my tile in plastic so had my field tile bull nosed. I used this place and it was $100 for our whole shower and a shelf like yours.

http://www.americanbullnose.com/locations.html

If there isn't one near you there are probably other places that do it. We had a couple in my town. I chose this one because they sent their price list so it was easy for me to calculate the cost of my entire job. I got the cheapest bull nose which is just polished, not color matched as I felt the body of my tile was an OK color to go with the face colors.

For your shelf you want to make sure it is heavily waterproofed. We had a low shelf like that which we ended up raising when we redid the shower. The old one showed no water damage but we use this bath for a dog bath and the dogs were always knocking the shampoo bottles down when they were getting their bath.

Pic. attached of bull nosed shelf. The corner of this top piece was a bit sharp so my tile guy used some type of pumice stone to smooth it down a bit and take off the right angle so it is more rounded.

We used the same bull nose against the wall and then caulked over the gap.

No, that’s a drop in tub with a bit of a lip. It is not an integral tiling flange. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Two completely different things.

I think this may help the OP. I did a lot of research on how a shower should be installed. Some pro may jump in and tell me I'm all wet but I think this is correct.

Tub with tile flange.

The blue in the picture below is mold resistant drywall. The grey is the tile backer board. The ceiling is some type of lightweight drywall. Our drywaller used Denshield for the tile backerboard. I had not heard of it. I would not use it again but regular cement board with Schluter shower system. https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/Shower-System/c/SS. I don't think ours is badly done but the Denshield has alot of instructions to follow that the drywall guy wanted to overlook.

We got most of it followed by adding our own screws and caulking all the
seams and holes but I wouldn't rely on a tile guy to follow the
instructions hence I can't recommend Denshield. You can see in the
picture that the Denshiled ends about an inch above the tub. There is a
lip on the tub that the backerboard meets or has a small gap with. If
there is regular drywall in your tub area you do not want it touching
the surface of your tub. You can also see how the tile backerboard is
flush with the wall drywall so only the tile and the tile mounting stuff
(can't remember the name) is raised above the wall level.

In a fit of extra caution we had Red Guard applied for water proofing. I also asked for a membrane on the shelf surface and that we angle the tile slightly down. The shelf was supposed to be built with a slight down angle but I wanted to be sure we did not eliminate that angle when the tile was installed. Unfortunately the tile guy did not know what a tile membrane was so brought the wrong material which did not work with Red Guard. I think it was part of the Schulter system. So we extra red guarded the shelf. I would have preferred a membrane but I couldn't find any locally and did not want to hold up the project while we had some shipped. Again I would not do this system again. The Red Guard is very smelly. Next shower we install will be the Schluter system.

https://www.schluter.com/schluter-us/en_US/Shower-System/c/SS

Our tile guy also used a special system for making sure all the tiles were level. The drywall guy had drywalled over an old screw so the Denshield wasn't quite level in one spot. We pointed this out to the tile guy in advance and he thought it was no problem and would disappear when the tile was mounted and it did. I highly recommend finding someone who uses the wedges system for getting the tile level and evenly spaced.

Before:

After:

Is it exactly what I envisioned? No, I originally wanted a niche system on the left wall but the drywall guy started building it with metal studs screwed together. I felt there was too much flex for a tile base so had him pull it out and we went with a simple shelf built very sturdily with 2x4s. I also asked him to make it the right height so we wouldn't have a small sliver of tile between the top of the tub and the shelf. But he did not account for the tile width on the top of the shelf so my husband unscrewed the Denshield, removed the 2x4 and replaced it with a 1x4. This made it the right height that we wouldn't have a short cut piece between the bottom of the shelf and the tub. We always pay our guys for the extra time for redos even if it is their fault. This is because we don't think they are trying to do it wrong but sometimes they just don't know and we would rather have things done right than save the $s and have them feel they were cheated out of their due. To this day I'm sure the drywall guy feels the metal stud wall niche system would have been fine but in my mind I envisioned alot of cracking grout and tile so to this day I feel I was right.

Sophie is correct about the flange.

Today I questioned the contractor on the waterproofing and his response was that the cement board is waterproof and the green sheetrock behind it also is, that its not ordinary. Adding there was foam insulation installed behind shewtrock, and that these tiles are wide = less joints = less chance for water.

Is he being real? I don't feel he is puposely doing a bad job. You Houzzers that know, was this just another way to waterproof shower? Researching I find there are tons of products.

This bathroom is intended to be used for
bath only. Hubby had plumber arrange for shower too but I don't forsee that being used much.

As you can see the cement board joints were not taped or floated before tile. Wrongly made?

This shelf will have granite and was told will be waterproofed before laying it down. What is the proper way? As you can clearly see it is WOOD.

Fire him. Rip it all out.

Ignorance of proper procedure is not an excuse in this day and age. Every manufacturer has seminars, literatures, and You Tube videos. The TCNA handbook isn’t expensive. But you have to actually want to keep up with industry standards, and want to continually improve your skills. I’m retired, and haven’t backbuttered a tile personally in about 10 years now, and I could probably do a better job. Because I’d want to.

I could not sleep with all this. We are running out of money and before dep]pplarting town for work hubby told this guy to concentrate on finishing restrooms this week. So yesterday he tiled away. Meanwhile....I'm away at Dr appointments with sick my toddlers. Afterwards reasearching I shared all this via text with hubby and he's now on my case for doing so "after the fact". Damn you HARVEY!

One option is to abandon the plans for a shower in this area and just tile over the shower plumbing. Have it be a garden tub only. If he is doing other showers in your home then you will likely have a problem with mold.

"Today I questioned the contractor on the waterproofing and his response was that the cement board is waterproof and the green sheetrock behind it also is,"

WRONG!!!!!! INSTALLER IS CLUELESS

Complete flustercluck. Top to bottom.