My best idea would be to cut it down to a smaller shower + a closet.

Seriously, everyone can always use another closet; whereas, 7' wide makes the shower so wide that it'll be uncomfortably large. I think a shower that size would be cold and make you feel venerable -- too far from the walls, too far from the shower controls and toiletries.

As for walls, I was just reading about FlexStone yesterday.

I so agree with Mrs Pete. Our shower is 7ish feet wide and it’s totally wasted space. The last 18” or so are a bench in which one never sits unless you’d like to freeze. No water can reach it to keep you warm. I even had to add a teak bench to pull forward under the spray to shave legs. I would have LOVED a storage closet there rather than adding one to the end of our vanity, shortening that space. Please really think about the realities of that large a shower.

The walls are already built.

It's going to be FREEZING, so have electric run for DitraHeat heated walls, floors, and benches, IN the shower. Yes, that's a thing. And it's going to be needed in a shower big enough for 4 people to use very comfortably, with elbows out, all at the same time.

Walls are easy to reduce and change. Spending 60K on a shower total? That's easy to change too.

Here's an idea--nude vollyball court.

You do realize that your shower at 49 sq feet is larger than the typical hall bath of 40 sq ft? Things might have changed since I was a teenager, but that reminds me of the locker room showers in high school, a totally open room with everyone exposed, and totally uncomfortable.

It's easy to take down newly built walls.

"ideas for a 7x7 shower"

Cut it in half.

You can overcome the freeze problem with more shower heads. You can overcome the water use for multiple shower heads with low flow heads. There are good models. You can lessen the expense of decorative wall cladding by making it a wet room without those walls, or at least most of them.

Can you fit a bathtub in the space? I might add a bench, maybe some shelves and places to hang towels. You could make it a wet room to shower and dry separate from the rest of the bathroom.

Have you considered adding a wall so that there is a walkway into your shower, making the shower smaller with around a 3' wide entry? Hard to know without seeing your floor plan if this would work. Our shower area is roughly 50 sq ft, but the actual shower itself is only 30 sq ft. The walkway in allows the shower to be curbless with no glass doors to keep clean (and all of the 50 sq ft is water proofed).

I think if you want a giant shower it's your business, but I just want to relate an experience I had.

I worked on a project where a big shower like this was the dream of the husband. It needed multiple shower heads and body sprays because it was so large. But he also wanted this, so fine.

When they were testing it out during the build, the hot water for the house lasted about 5 minutes tops before it was completely tapped out by the shower. So they had to put in special hot water heaters and a pressure system to get enough force to the sprays when everything was turned on. And really the only way to take a shower in there for the wife was with everything turned on because she said it was too cold only running a regular shower head (so she usually used the small shower in the guest room, as it turns out) although the husband loved running it.

They were able to make it work just fine, but it was a Lot more expensive than just making the shower bigger. It was a whole separate system for that one shower. And they had high water bills. You may have taken all of this into account so it may be a moot point. But in case you hadn't I wanted to bring up the possibility that a dedicated system might be needed.

And that is why CA only allows ONE low flow fixture to run at a time. Because sport court showers with commercial boilers to supply them is just getting out of hand. Water is a precious resource, even if it's cheap and plentiful in locations. It mostly is not cheap or plentiful for the rest of the world.

When they were testing it out during the build, the hot water for the house lasted about 5 minutes tops before it was completely tapped out by the shower.

Yeah, I was about to bring up this possibility. When our kids were in college, we used to stay in a hotel with a double-sized bathtub ... and we weren't able to fill it with HOT water. Not quite the same thing, I know, but it's a warning.

Water is a precious resource, even if it's cheap and plentiful in locations. It mostly is not cheap or plentiful for the rest of the world.

And just because a resource is cheap /plentiful today doesn't mean it'll be cheap /plentiful tomorrow or ten years from now.

I’m surprised the Dekton was only 20K. That’s only $100 a square foot if there are 3 10’H walls of it. Thats about a 50% discount over standard pricing.

I met with my designer today, and I am going to go with large format ceramic tile.

If you are going to have forceful body sprays, the water proofing has to be perfect.

In the bathroom above, apparently there was something in the shower around the window (which was not close to the body sprays and so high that you could not see out of it so technically it should have been out of the direct spray)

As it turns out the couple who built the house divorced soon after the house was finished and she bought the house next door (the same model as the one she had torn down).

She came into work one day and said "Guess what happened? The back of my old house fell off!" And she showed me pictures. The entire area under the shower window, in a near perfect outline of the shower was rotten. The sheathing and installation were sopping wet and black. It apparently started in one small area under the window that they found when they pulled the tile off.

They didn't' get divorced because of building the house. Separate issue.

No body sprays. Just a 2 in one on opposite sides of the shower and a rain head.

Large format ceramic tile will not be any cheaper. It actually might end up being more. It's as expensive as stone slabs. $100-$200 a square, by the time it's all done.

@Myra Stern …. the shower in our2d home has a shower about that size, maybe 6’ x 6’ or so, I love it. We have a built in bench along one wall & the ever controversial ( for some ) shower niche. We LOVE the large shower for a variety of reasons, i I would just skip the rain head, we never use it , but that’s just us.

Ours is 45sf with 10 ft. high walls. Uh, oh!

(Everything involving this build is like buying a new car.)