I have to drill for body wash and shampoo holders. I have to drill for wash towel hangers, sponge holders. I have to drill for shaving accessories. And I have to drill for a shower head set for kids.
Finally I designed the ultimate shower / bathroom caddy. The basic frame is a T-shaped thing made of PVC pipes and fittings. You can add anything to it at the end points, or branch out at the tee fittings already built-in. All you need are 3 drill points for fixing the end points of the big T.
The main thing is the horizontal bar for hanging towels, lots of them. Each hook is made from a short section of PVC pipe, with part of it cut out leaving a finger like extrusion. The uncut section of the pipe sits into a tee coupling. I cut PVC using a cheap oscillator tool, which cuts like butter.
On the right is a platform for soap made from tee couplings. The inside of the tubes can also hold things, like a grout cleaning brush here. The gap between the pipes and the tile can also hold things like a razor.
The kid's shower head holder is an after thought. I cut a gap along the length of a tee coupling for the shower head tubing. It's not adjustable but a 45 deg bend is sufficient. Adults can also shower without wetting their hair.
At the drill points, screws hold flat PVC plugs in place. Tee couplings near the big frame are then pushed into the plugs with the help of a rubber mullet.
As the mounting was surprisingly perfect, I accidentally discovered the law of triangle mount. Thou shall not mount with 2 holes, not 4 holes or more, but 3 and only 3 holes. You first assemble the whole frame and trace the tee openings on the tiles where the plugs should go. Drill at the centre of the openings and also at the centre of the plugs.
Now, if you ever drilled on tiles before even with a tile bit, it's not possible to be precise. I would have thought 3 points will be a disaster. But it turns out to be perfect. Absolutely no wobbling. My theory is that the holes in the tiles, holes in the plug, and the plastic frame itself, all can give at least a little. Or you can say a little play. But ... once you can gently hammer the frame in place, there will be no wobbling, as if the drilled holes were in the perfect position. Say if one side of the triangle is too long for the holes, the other two side will help to fix that side in place. Only if you are too far off, you just need to replace some of the plugs with holes in better positions, until you can push the frame in.
I don't even need to seal the screw holes. The screw is covered by the PVC frame. The plugs act as seals. Water can get into the pipes and reach the screws. But the water level cannot rise high enough.
Also, if you cannot add enough things to this gadget, you can always pull the whole thing out from the plugs and do a complete redesign using the same 3 screws. There's absolutely no glues and other screws used. The whole thing is totally reusable and recyclable.
