Although the house has a shower stall, I want to fix the cracks in its floor before we use it, so we’ve been taking showers in one of the bathtubs. As is always the case, the soap tray / grab handle is positioned for someone reclining in the tub, making it both too low and too awkward for either of us.
Normally, I’d just stick a soap tray on the wall and be done with it, but the tub wall is covered with small tiles that defeat sticky cups; more permanent adhesives are not under discussion.
So I dropped a TrayInsert grid into a NotesHolder box, stuck them to the existing fixture with snippets of (regrettably black) outdoor-rated foam tape, and there it is:
You’ll surely not have 3.2 mm acrylic for the grid and 2.5 mm acrylic for the box, but those two linkies have the jawbreaker URLs required to regenerate exactly what I built using the incomparable boxes.py site and you can tweak them as needed.
The general concept had it stick out a bit from the fixture handle to let soap gunk drip into the tub, not down the wall, and to have an easily removable grid for cleaning. I doodled all manner of clever hooks to engage the ceramic handle before coming to my senses; this is a prototype, it may not solve the problem very well at all, so let’s find out if it works before making it better.
The WordPress AI urges me to remind you of the safety issues surrounding DIY projects. IMO, should you need such reminders, they won’t do you any good and you must immediately stop reading this blog.
Fair enough?
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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7 responses to “Acrylic Grid Bathtub Soap Tray”
Double sided foam tape also comes in white (at least at my locally owned hardware store)
When I find outdoor-rated white foam tape, I’ll be on it like static cling!
From Office Depot – looks like outdoor rated white:
https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/752059/Scotch-Heavy-Duty-InteriorExterior-Double-Sided/#Reviews
Yeah, the Office Depot Specs say “white”, but all the pictures match the good black tape I already have. FWIW, the rest of the Specs are copypasta junk, which is typical.
The OEM fiberglass shower stall in the master bathroom is proving that indifferent installation and less-than-robust materials makes for a poor combination. (It’s considered good practice to set such things in a mortar bed. Didn’t happen and the odd pops and cracks appeared.) Plus, wood shower brushes + gravity >> strength of fiberglass gel coat. Epoxy plastic fix is functional, but ugly.
A tile enclosure will be a good idea. I did one a couple of decades ago, but my bucket list says that one is sufficient. Once the favored contractor comes up for air, we can start. His hollow laughter implies it’s going to be a few months at best.
That’s what happened with the stall here: no support under the pan = cracks galore.
If the irregular tilework on the wall and the repositioned drain are any indication, it’s the second shower in that position, so they should have known better.
[…] expected, the adhesive foam strips I used on the bathtub soap tray didn’t survive continued exposure to hot soapy water, so Version 2 includes hooks securing it […]