KenM wrote:

I'm going to re-do our shower, using tile. It has an acrylic shower base
which I want to replace.

Should I go with acrylic again, or do tile? What are issues regarding
durability, lifetime, leaks, ease of keeping clean?

For acrylic, I've found info on Jucuzzi and American Standard. Can you
recommend one of these, or another?

Judging by the instructions I've pulled of the web, installation of acrylic
looks pretty straightforward. Any useful tips?

I've done a half-dozen floor/backsplash tile projects, so I'm pretty
comfortable with doing the shower walls. But a tile base is another story.
Looking in a tile book, it doesn't seem too difficult. Is this something
that takes some experience to get right, or could I reasonably expect to get
it right the first time? This is on a second floor, so I definitely don't
want leaks to be a problem.

The book I looked at said to use a heavy plastic liner. I know in the old
days they used a lead liner. What's the current thinking in that area? Any
other tips for installing a tile base?

There are lots of fine points. I used a book from Home Depot, _Tiling
1-2-3" which made it look simple. It's not. Getting the floor pitched
right is really hard because you can't stand back and look at it. I got
two slight slight dips that take awhile to dry out. And the drain was
hard. Cutting the floor tile matrix to fit around the drain took 4
tries until I figured how to do it. Luckily, somebody told me to use
expoxy grout because it will never fail or mildew.