Over the years, I bought several shower organizers, and each one found its own creative way to disappoint me. Some made the shower feel like an airplane bathroom. Others slowly migrated down the shower head, while suction cups continued their long-running campaign against the concept of reliability. Eventually, the shower floor became our storage system, which technically worked in the same way a kitchen floor could technically be a pantry. There was already a sturdy handhold attached to the wall, though, and that seemed like enough justification to spend a weekend designing a better answer. I designed and 3D printed a custom corner shelf that clamps to the existing handhold without drilling into the wall, and after more than seven years and thousands of showers, it is still doing the job.
The shower floor storage system
I've purchased several shower organizers over the years, and they generally offered the same collection of features with slightly different failure modes.
Some were bulky enough to make the shower feel like an airplane bathroom. The organizers that hung from the shower head tended to slowly slide downward, apparently exhausted from another long day at the office.
And then there were suction cups.
Suction cups are basically the engineering equivalent of saying "trust me."
Eventually, everything ended up back on the shower floor.
I didn't want to drill into the shower wall. There are several layers of potentially expensive consequences hiding behind tile, and I wasn't interested in discovering any of them.
But there was already a handhold securely mounted to the wall.
That seemed promising.
Starting with cardboard
Before committing several hours of printer time and a considerable amount of plastic to the idea, I made a cardboard shelf and some simple brackets.
The goal was just to answer the important question: could I securely attach a shelf to the existing handhold without modifying the shower?
It looked like I could.
Then I remembered that four people use this shower.
A small shelf wasn't going to solve much.
So the design stretched around the corner to create enough room for everyone's bottles. At this point the cardboard had done its job, and it was time to move to CAD.
Giving everything a place
The basic shelf geometry was simple enough, but showers introduce one fairly predictable design requirement.
Water.
I added a lip around the shelf so bottles couldn't slide off. Of course, adding a lip also creates a convenient little swimming pool, so the next feature was drainage holes.
Then those holes got bigger.
Not purely for drainage, either.
Large openings underneath the bottles make it possible to turn a bottle upside down and squeeze out the final bit of shampoo or soap without removing it from the shelf.
Every ounce saved is money that can eventually be redirected toward the important things.
Like another 3D printer.
While I was already adding features, I made dedicated holes for razors.
Then came hooks for washcloths.
As many hooks as reasonably fit, naturally.
By the end, what started as a flat surface had become storage specifically designed around the things our family actually keeps in the shower.
That's the part of 3D printing I find difficult to replace with something off the shelf. Instead of buying a product that's approximately right, the geometry can follow the actual problem.
Printing a very large, very flat shelf
With the model finished, it was time to print.
For this version I used a BIQU CryoGrip Glacier build plate, which BIQU and BigTreeTech sent over for evaluation.
Large, flat prints can be especially sensitive to bed adhesion. A corner lifting even slightly can turn a long print into a large piece of recycling.
The Glacier plate kept the shelf fixed to the bed throughout the entire print.
Adding hardware to the print
Once everything was printed, I installed brass heat-set inserts for the threaded connections.
I like using heat-set inserts whenever a printed part needs to be assembled with hardware. They provide a much stronger and more reusable threaded connection than repeatedly driving a screw directly into plastic.
They also make a 3D print involve actual hardware, which makes me irrationally happy.
Caution: Heat-set inserts are installed with a hot soldering iron or insertion tool. Work in a ventilated area, keep the hot tool away from skin and surrounding plastic, and let the insert cool completely before handling or tightening hardware.
The brackets clamp around the existing shower handhold, so installation didn't require drilling into the wall.
That was the entire point of using the handhold in the first place, but it's always reassuring when the final assembly remembers the plan.
Seven years later
Once installed, everything finally had a place.
Soap bottles sat on the shelf. Razors had their own openings. Washcloths had hooks. Water could drain instead of collecting around everything.
More importantly, it stayed that way.
This wasn't a shelf I installed for a video and removed a week later.
The original version has been in our family's daily routine for more than seven years.
That means thousands of showers, repeated exposure to water, and a steady barrage of bathroom cleaning products.
And it's still holding up remarkably well.
I'm not replacing it because it failed.
I'm replacing it because I want the larger openings beneath the soap bottles.
Seven years of successful service apparently earned it a redesign.
Why I keep 3D printing things
Projects like this are why I enjoy 3D printing.
The interesting part isn't really the shelf. You can buy shower shelves. There is, in fact, an entire industry prepared to sell them to you without requiring CAD software, cardboard prototypes, heat-set inserts, or several hours of printer time.
The interesting part is that I didn't have to settle for close enough.
The mounting method could fit the handhold already in the shower. The shelf could wrap around the corner because four people needed the space. Drainage could happen exactly where I wanted it. Razors and washcloths could have dedicated spots.
And when seven years of use suggested one small improvement, I could change the model and print another one.
That's a pretty satisfying lifecycle for a piece of plastic that started as some cardboard taped around a shower handhold.
Sometimes building something yourself isn't about making an object that nobody else sells.
It's about learning enough to make the ordinary stuff around you fit your life a little better.