How to remove a glass shower door

Hi guys!  We’re about to get real here.  As real as it will ever get at Avenue Laurel.  This is Authentic Life at it’s absolute dirtiest, finest hour.

First, let me tell you about the only time that I have truly, truly regretted that we bought the house.  It was not long after we bought it, and the first thing that I did before we even moved in was clean the bathroom.  Although I have admitted that I have problems with organization, I really can’t stand for my house to be dirty, and I had the bleach on full power.   The only full bathroom (there is one half bath as well) has a glass shower door.  The extent of hard water stains and soap scum on this shower door- let’s just say it beat me into submission.  Two hours later I was literally crying in the bathtub, having tried every cleaning product known to man to clean it without success.  The grossness…I can’t even describe.  I used MY OWN TOOTHBRUSH to scrub in the tiny crevasses to try to get it clean (yes, I bought a new one after).  I even got a flat head screwdriver to scrape the gunk off.

I tried every “green” product.  Anything that Pinterest recommended.  Even the As Seen On TV products.  Although there were marginal improvements, nothing really worked.

I really hated those shower doors.

Before we moved in, we had actually wanted to demo the entire shower and replace the whole thing (because yes, we know this tile is awful), but when we had a contractor come in, he advised us against it unless we were up for possibly tens of thousands of dollars and a whole lot of headaches.  “You just never know what you will find with these old houses” he said.

We weren’t up for that.

So ever since then, Michael has been wanting to just take out the shower doors and use a shower curtain.  I wanted to do that too, but I was scared that it is too big of a project and that the tiles underneath the shower door will be all jacked up.

Well, we finally did it.  And guess what?  It was no big deal!  Michael was totally right.

Y’all just want to see the gross pictures, right?

Okay, here is what we started with, and how to take out the doors (as usual, pictures are a little wonky because small room and small camera lens).  Here, you can get kind of an overall view:

The shower curtain you see in the picture?  I use that because I really hate that tile…and it disguises it pretty well when the shower isn’t in use!  That curtain is darling, and came from this etsy shop (affiliate) if you are interested.

The first thing that we did was take out the sliding doors.  They come out pretty easily- just lift up and out, and they slide right out.  Then, cut through the silicone caulk.  We did that for both sides of the shower.

Then, see those little screws in the sides?  Remove those:

We had an extra little glass partition in our shower door, so that’s what you see Michael removing here.

Once we removed the screws, we tried to pry off the top bar, but it wouldn’t come off, so Michael started working on the sides, and they came off pretty easily.  Then, the GROSSEST, NASTIEST, I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT part…  y’all PLEASE don’t bounce because of this….and for all of you shower door folks- consider this a fair warning for what might be lurking underneath it!  Once we removed the bottom bar…THIS was what we found:  I was just getting over a stomach bug when we did the project, and I literally almost threw up.

Also, I can’t believe that I am putting this on the internet.

Michael said all kinds of hilarious, but ultimately (and sadly) unprintable, things about what that stuff could be.

Okay, so at this point, all that was left for us was the top bar and the little side partition- it was just hanging on like a loose tooth.  Michael just kind of wiggled it around a little bit and it came right off!

Next, remove all of the silicone from the tile.  My friends, that is easier said that done- this will soon go from being mildly therapeutic and relaxing to “my good gracious somebody poke my eyes out with a fork”.  But, Michael found a trick that made it go by so quickly!

Check it out!  Use a heat gun to heat up the silicone for just a few seconds (sorry for the blurry pic):

Then the silicone scrapes off with a razor blade like butter (be careful, the tile will be warm)!

After all of the scrapin’, then, finally for the love of sweet baby Jesus, it was time to give this poor bathroom the best cleaning it has had since it was remodeled with that awful tile and shower door (what do you think?  Probably early 90’s? The walls were pink with a nice floral border when we moved in if that helps) 🙂

I don’t think I have ever enjoyed cleaning as much as I enjoyed cleaning the bathroom that night.  I think the bathroom enjoyed it too.

Here’s the after:

So, I know, bless her, she’s no beaut.  Even after a good scrubbing, there’s still a lot of work that needs to happen.  I’m going to post all of our bathroom plans (what we’ve done so far, and what we plan to do) soon!

But this project took less than an hour, cost no money, and man I wish we had done this sooner!

Don’t forget to Pin this post! 🙂

PS- Bathroom update here!