DIY: How to Add (Removable) Walls to RV Shower Shelves
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My RV shower shelves looked nice and are useful when we’re parked. But with no bar to hold soaps in place, they are totally useless when the RV is in motion! I don’t know why RV manufacturers make shower shelves like this when they know RVs are meant to be driven!
Now I know that I could have easily solved this problem by moving everything to the floor of the shower while the RV was moving. But who wants to do that every time the RV moves?
I wanted to find a permanent solution to keep my soaps in place. I did some research and found a DIY solution that is easily removable and leaves no trace.
Later I did find this on Amazon that would also work!
Product currently sold out.
Here is my DIY solution for those RV shower shelves that need to keep soaps in place. I’ll include a supply list, detailed instructions, and a video below.
My Process
First, I purchased a small piece of 24″ x 18″ plexiglass at Lowe’s. They cut it for me into three 11″ x 4″ pieces—the size I needed for the walls of my shelves. I always ask the team at Lowe’s or Home Depot to cut things for me to save me the time and tools at home!
Next, I purchased a strip of flexible silicone “h” type shower door seal, cut six 4″ pieces from it, and then cut the “leg” of the “h” off to make it a “y” shape instead.
Below, you can see what it looked like before and after cutting:
Using Acrylic Mounting Tape
The key to this project is clear acrylic double-sided mounting tape.
- XFasten Extreme Heavy Duty Mounting Tape is waterproof and can hold up to 5 lbs of mass per square inch of tape.
If you’ve visited my site before, you’ve probably heard me rave about this tape because I use it for everything! This stuff is amazingly strong, super stretchy, and flexible. It will even stick in a humid shower and still be easy to peel off with zero damage to the surface it was stuck to.
Read More: All the ways I use this acrylic mounting tape around my RV
I attached 1″-wide mounting tape to the wide, flat side of the shower seal strips and cut the tape to be the same length.
Cutting the Plexiglass
I then cut strips of the mounting tape in half lengthwise to make them 1/2″ wide and affixed them to the edges of the plexiglass.
Then I peeled the red backing off the tape on the plexiglass and attached a strip of seal to each edge, like this:
After that, I peeled the backing off of the wider strips of tape, and took it to my shower.
Now my plexiglass has easy-to-attach sides!
Attaching the Plexiglass to My Shower Walls
I stuck it to the walls of my shower, bowing the plexiglass just slightly as I pushed it into place. I left about half an inch of space for water to drain out. Notice that my shower walls are textured. This works just as well for smooth or textured shower walls.
Read Next: Why Is My RV Shower Turning Yellow? How to Fix a Yellow Camper Shower
Here are all my plexiglass walls in place:
The Completed Project
Here are my shelves filled with stuff.
I purposely left the bottles on the bottom shelf, which are both nearly full, upside down and leaning up against the plexiglass to see if it would hold, and it hasn’t budged. Water and humidity haven’t affected the adhesion either.
I keep plants in my shower because I have a skylight that provides light for them. Begonia and Pothos ivy, in case you were wondering.
Read More: 9 Mobile Gardening Ideas for Full Time RVers
They are planted in a sponge caddy that I used to have hanging from Command strips on the shower walls, but I decided I liked it better sitting on the top shelf.
This project can be done for around $25-$30, or less if you already have the mounting tape. Here is a list of the materials I used for this project, as well as a step-by-step list of instructions:
Materials needed:
- plexiglass – You can get this at a place like Lowe’s or Home Depot and they will cut it for you, or you can purchase it online and cut it yourself, or you can order it custom cut to your specifications from several online suppliers.
- silicone “h” type shower door seal
- clear acrylic double-sided mounting tape
Steps:
- Cut one piece of plexiglass for each shelf to the length of the widest part of your shower shelves and whatever height you prefer.
- Cut a length of silicone shower seal for each edge of the plexiglass equal to the height of the glass.
- Cut and affix 1″ mounting tape to the wide, flat surface of the shower seal. Do not remove the backing yet.
- Cut 1″ mounting tape lengthwise to make it 1/2″ wide and affix it to edges of the plexiglass pieces. Do not remove the backing yet.
- Remove the backing from the tape along the edges of the plexiglass and attach the glass to the shower seal along the inside of the short side of the “y”.
- Remove the backing from the tape along the wide, flat side of the shower seal.
- Leaving about 1/2″ of clearance to allow water to drain out, press the plexiglass into the corner of the shower, bowing the glass slightly to create pressure against the wall along the edges.
If you do this project, please leave a comment to let me know how it goes, and if you come up with any improvements to my design!
Three Years Later
In 2019, when we moved out of our fifth wheel after living in it for three years, I made this video to follow-up and talk about my experience with the project:
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Ashley Mann spent three years living full time in a 38-foot, 5th-wheel RV with her husband Josiah and their cat, Kitty. Her favorite thing about RV life is the challenge of finding the perfect way to organize a space, and she loves seeing all the creative and clever ways people come up with to customize their RVs.
This is such a genius way to turn an otherwise (nearly) useless storage space into something super functional, especially when you drive off! I haven’t tried double-sided mounting tape in a while, but now I’ll definitely have to give it a go.
This is wonderfully innovative! But i am also wondering what painting process you used to paint that wonderful shower?
I’ve had several people ask me that now. Actually, I didn’t paint it; that shower is a Keystone factory original. I just got lucky!
I love this shelf hack! Thanks, I’m so doing this!
Yay! Glad I could help! 🙂
Thanks for the inspiration! I just installed some walls on our shower shelves using your plexiglass idea, for under $20! Couldn’t find the ‘h’ style silicone gasket in our small town hardware store, so opted for something called ‘tub caulk tape’. Stuck one half to the wall and one half to the plexiglass and has a flexible line to fold at whatever angle you need…it was super easy and seems to stick good so far.
Awesome to hear! And thanks for the tip about the tub caulk tape which I’m sure will come in handy for anyone who can’t find the H style strip!
Thanks so more for your comment. I did it this way and it held up for about 4 months but they started to slide apart if that makes sense.
So I scraped all the caulk from the white plastic part and re-applied using this awesome tape RVI used original and it’s working brilliantly!!
So creative! I love that idea!
I tried to complete this project with the 1/4” h-type shower door seal you highlighted but could not get the tape to hold the acrylic, even by bowing the acrylic. I’m happy to say, though, that I was able to get it to hold with 1/2” h-type shower door seal and completed this project today. We desperately needed this additional storage in the bathroom of our new fifth wheel toy hauler, so thanks for the idea. Thanks, too, for introducing me to removable mounting tape!
Thank you for this additional information, and I’m glad you were able to figure out a way to make it work and add storage to your shower!