Shower faucet "plate" replacement

[dirt33]

Nothing real Earth-shattering here, but just posting this as I know sometimes viewing a photo can help visualize something that a person may have been thinking about doing (or maybe it can provide a new idea altogether... I have seen numerous things on this forum that I would not have thought of on my own).

I was sick of bumping into the hot/cold knobs in the shower, so I replaced the stock "plate onto which the faucet attaches" with a flat piece. The 2" or so saved actually makes a tremendous difference. In a shower that small, every 2" gained is a bunch.... Replacing the stock "knob" faucet with this "handle" faucet also helped as this faucet is slightly less deep. But really, the flat plate is what helped to no longer have me banging my hip into the faucet during every shower.

The part that was taken out:

http://www.ameri-kart.com/RV-Products/Product-Catalog/Category-Images/Faucet-Bezel.aspx

Replaced with:

http://i64.tinypic.com/xeicr8.jpg
http://i63.tinypic.com/2qisinn.jpg

[Dave & Lyn]

I like it. Will be doing this modification soon. Thanks for the idea and post.

[JimQ]

I also like this. Great job! Did you fabricate the plate? I'll also be doing this to our Bullet! Thanks for sharing. That's why this forum is so awesome.

[dirt33]

Yes, I did make the plate. The material came from Lowe's, I purchased it as an "access door" intended for a house cubby hole, etc, and cut it down to size. The plastic worked real well, as it is thick enough to be sturdy, but very easy to cut/smooth/etc.

I know the stock plate that sticks out a couple inches is used by default in seemingly all RVs to provide ample room behind the faucet for the threaded connections, particularly in applications where the faucet is mounted on a side wall of the shower. However, on a corner application shown above, I never could see why they "must" use that type of plate, when there is plenty of room behind the faucet. Just "ease of availability" of that particular part when building I'm sure, which I understand. However, for me, there was no way I was going to leave that plate/stock faucet sticking so far out.