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I have a very small combination bathtub/shower. There is not much room to begin with and I am already bumping and banging into things. There are two what I'll call "racks" on the wall inside the shower/tub. Here is the first one, which we use to keep towels on:

Rack 1

Then, there is another rack, this is the problematic one...

Rack 2

I bang into this second one constantly while washing... Is there something I can do to remove it without making too much of a mess? We have two in there, shouldn't one be enough anyway? We have another storage thing inside anyway:

Storage Rack

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  • Did you look on the bottom of these for inset Allen head screws? – ArchonOSX Oct 28 '17 at 16:23
  • Are you sure they are towel racks and not hand grabs? Towel racks don't make a whole lot of sense in the shower. It would mean you would need to move them to take a shower. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Oct 28 '17 at 18:09
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Those are ceramic towel bar posts.

This type of towel bar is set in with the tile, a tile is cut so there is a space for the towel bar ends to "seat" into, held in by the grout.

If it is removed you may crack or break some surrounding tile, at the least there will be missing tile where the rack was.

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  • One comment says they're not towel bars, is that true? – Snoop Oct 28 '17 at 23:28
  • If they are both in the shower, one or both may have been used as a grab bar although they are not made for that purpose. They are still towel bars. The square rod between the 2 posts is typically wood with a plastic wrap or made entirely of plastic. depending on how old the bar is. In all my years, I have not seen them in a shower, over a tub, yes, but not as a grab bar never the less. And still if you remove them you will have a space in your tile. Just to confirm, do as I did if you will do a search online for "ceramic towel bars" or even "ceramic grab bars", see what the results are.... – Jack Oct 29 '17 at 1:09
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The previous poster is correct that they are ceramic towel bat posts. You can, if you're careful, chip them out without breaking the surrounding tile. However, the bigger problem is what are you going to do with the holes in your tile wall? I suppose you could fill the holes with grout or caulk, either way it's going to be rather ugly and just look wrong.

If you're dead set on removing them, I'd carefully chip them out and fill the hole with grout that matches the rest of the grout and hope for the best.

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  • You could get a couple tiles and cut them down to size for the holes, then grout them in. Likely look bad though. Perhaps precious gemstones instead. You're looking at replacing 8 tiles if you want the rack out of there clean. -Maybe only 4; hard to tell from pic. – Wayfaring Stranger Oct 29 '17 at 0:55
  • @WayfaringStranger completely agree. Unless they replace all the affected tiles it's going to look pretty bad. Adding some sort of feature tile has potential, but will still look really out of place. – Haendler Oct 29 '17 at 1:03
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Use an angle grinder to cut the arms off as close to the wall as you can. Then a belt sander to level them off as nicely as possible.

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  • noooooooooooo ! – Alaska Man Oct 29 '17 at 9:52

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