I’m doing a tub to shower conversion in a hundred-year-old house in the interest of ”aging in place” (and yes, I hate that I have to do it). Two sides of the shower will be ceramic tile and two will be glass (one short wall, one long wall). To anticipate future needs, I had wanted to put in a bench, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.

The plumbing will have to go in one or both of the ceramic walls (the shower head in the short wall and the controls and handheld shower head in the long wall, maybe). It seems kind of silly to put the bench in at the short end underneath the shower head, where the water from the shower head would barely touch a seated person. However, the bracket for the handheld shower could be placed appropriately for that person to get a seated shower. A bench placed on the long wall would restrict the width of the shower too much to move around in it.

In my mind, the bench would go on the short wall opposite the tiled short wall. However, the penny just dropped, and I realized that you can’t attach a bench to a glass wall — or can you? Is there a way to have a built-in bench that’s stable (and won’t affect the stability of the glass walls) that’s either attached to a glass wall or attached firmly enough to a tile wall at one end, and to the floor? Is putting the bench on the tiled wall under the shower head as stupid as it’s going to look, or would it be surprisingly functional? FWIW, I’m installing a 10” rain shower as the main shower head, and the pipe to which the shower head attaches is very adjustable.

Should I just forget the whole bench thing and buy a teak bench when and if I need one? Thanks.

(Sorry for no photos, but there’s really no point, because everything in the picture will be gone by this time next week.)