Summer and I spent a lot of time picking out the Kohler Shower Set for the master bathroom. We are being very cash conscious with all of these purchases since the money is quickly disappearing. We were a little bummed out that we needed to make the “which one” decision before we even had tile in the bathroom because it is so hard to visualize how your bathroom is going to turn out when it looks like this!

With that said, we found what we were looking for and ordered it online, all the while our plummer is asking me on the daily basis when we are going to get the parts. Well, they finally arrived to Puerto Rico yesterday so I called the plumber and had him come over this morning. When he got there, he informed me that the “valve” we need for the “rough in” wasn’t included in the two sets we bought. After reading further about our Kohler Shower heads on line, I realized that we purchased the “trim” kit, which basically means everything on the outside.

The Installation Guide suggests the K-306-KS HiFlo Valve so I simply Googled it and found one right away. Unfortunately, the Kohler list prices is $358 each. That would make our shower worth about $1500 pre-tile and pre-custom shower pan. So, I searched for our shower heads on Kohler and found the “People that bought this item also bought this” section that showed three choices for valves that ranged from $99 to $300. Amazingly enough, I found what we needed and ordered it 3 day to California (they don’t ship to Puerto Rico). Once Summer gets her hands on them, it will take another 3 days (if she pays for overnight) to get to Puerto Rico and into my hands.

This is a picture of the infamous “Kohler HiFlo Shower Valve”.

Also, let our lesson be a good one for you no matter where you are building your house (or redoing a bathroom); you don’t need to buy you set of shower/bath accessories ahead of time, you only need to buy the “rough in shower valve.” You will need to do a little bit of research first, get an idea of the brand you would like to use (Delta, Kohler, American Standard, Latoscana) so you can match up your shower faucet with your roughed in hardware…but besides that, you can choose your finish (brushed chrome, brushed nickel, nickel, vibrant french gold, brushed bronze etc) well after the tile is in and you can visualize the bathroom.

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