I think one vertically placed to steady yourself when getting in and out of the shower so wherever that works with your particular shower entrance and one horizontally placed on the wall perpendicular to the shower head wall to steady yourself while in the shower or to grab if you slip.

We’re renovating our bathroom at our vacation home. We’re not adding grab bars now but are adding blocking for installation at a later date. It’s a three walled alcove shower. There will be a vertical bar at the entrance and a horizontal bar along the long back wall..

The advantage of the angled grab bar is that it's handy for people of different heights. We don't really have any mobility issues (yet), but we use the grab bars all the time. There is also a vertical one, as Fun mentioned, on the outside wall. The horizontal grab bar also gets used as a mini ledge, or drying rack. I am glad we got these installed when we did the renovation.

I put in one smaller vertical bar at the entrance, this really long one on the back wall where I hang the bath mat, and a shelf at the end opposite end from the shower head to hold products for guests - it is also a grab bar,

This is the only pic of the shelf I can find

I find angled very difficult to use! Prefer horizontal.

Well....I always put ONE on the wall at an angle. The door has one....not sturdy, but to balance on.

Came back to say that I also had blocking and a horizontal grab bar installed on the wall of the bathroom where you would normally install a towel rack. I can use it for towels, but it’s also handy if you slip on the floor tile. It’s so much sturdier, too, than a towel rack. Those things always seem to fall off the wall especially if you use heavier towels (or have children who like to hang on them).

Both of mine in the shower are vertical. i was told that if DH fell, it would be easier for him to reach the bottom of a vertical grab bar. We have 2 in the shower, one by the door that he could hold on to as he got in and out. The second one is near the seat so he could steady himself as he sat down and pull himself up when he finished showering.

The one next to the toilet is horizontal.

I also had vertical grab bars installed in each guest room so people stepping over into the tub could steady themselves.

I know you were looking for personal experience, but Occupational Therapists do these sorts of assessments all the time and think this might be helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wED1l1Vilho

When DH redid our main bath he put in the structural support for the three bars recommended behind our tile. FF 15 years and my hip surgery had us putting in the horizontal bar across the long side of the tub shower combo. It's been all I needed but that's the thing with growing older in a home, until a NEED arises it's tough to know for sure what ya might need. There are suction cup removeable bars that might get you through--but not if you have grout lines in the way.

Absolutely agree that it's tough to know until the need arises, but there is general guidance with that. In our last home, we had my FIL move in . It was an au pair or in law's suite so perfect- first floor, had its own bathroom. We had remodled and removed the tub and had a shower.

We did not know about grab bars ( we did the remodel several years before he moved in). Of course, he ended up using the towel bar and the shower doors. Not a good thing. The towel bar came right out of the wall the shower door was kind of messed up after.

We learned then that we needed to have extra blocking and were ablet o put one by the toilet as well.

I'm trying to see what makes sense for our layout, without having it excessive.

The video was very good explaining that at entry it should be vertical and within the shower a bit more variable but horizontal.. and so on