Our home remodeling services directory can provide invaluable information when you're getting ready to start moving forward with your remodeling project. Click here to visit our Homeowner's Resource Guide containing verified architects, interior designers, landscapers, building contractors, and more.

Shower Power

Large custom showers muscle out bathtubs

By Rachel Arroyo

More and more homeowners are ditching the bathtub in favor of a large, luxurious shower stall. Some make the move from tub to shower for safety reasons—for example, seniors might find the elevated ledge of a tub difficult to negotiate—while others choose shower over tub as a matter of convenience.

About her family’s decision to eliminate the tub in their first-floor bathroom, Colby Anderson says, “For me it was cosmetic. For my husband, it was space in the shower because he is so tall. The bathroom isn’t big enough to have a tub and shower.”

Because the second-floor bathroom has a tub and the Andersons reserve their first-floor bathroom for guests and brief showers, trading in the tub/shower combo on the first floor made sense.

“We wanted to open up the space and make it more pleasing to look at,” Colby says. Doing away with the tub helped make the bathroom appear larger than its 70 square feet.

“The customer really wanted more light just to open up the bathroom,” says Katie Gelinas of G & L Quality Home Improvements in Sandwich, contractor for the project. To achieve this, G & L cut down half the height of the wall partition between the toilet and the shower and installed a clear glass enclosure around the shower. The dispersion of natural and artificial light also creates the appearance of a larger, more open space.

“I think it really changed the entire feeling of the bathroom,” Gelinas says.
Completed within a month, the entire bathroom remodel cost just under $14,000.

TUB TOSS

Trading in the tub for a large shower appears to be an ongoing trend. “As long as there is one tub in the house,” Gelinas says, “I am seeing that people just get rid of the tub.”

Gelinas’ sentiments are echoed by others in the business. Linda Whitcomb, head designer for Village Kitchen and Bath in Hyannis, reports that at least 50 percent of her bathroom projects eliminate tubs. “People are getting away from standard 5-foot tubs because the showers offer more luxury,” Whitcomb says. “They are souping up their bathrooms. They are looking for a spa effect.”

Danielle Jones of Snow and Jones believes that convenience is a big factor. “People are busy and don’t want to sit and wait for the bath to fill up,” she says. “I have seen a lot more custom showers.”

One of the many benefits of replacing the tub with a shower is the opportunity to customize and create a shower that meets the specific needs and aesthetic preferences of the owners.

The Andersons’ new shower takes up the same amount of space as the old tub/shower combo—60 by 34 inches. But without the thick and bulky ledge, it appears larger and more spacious. The homeowners lost some storage space with the removal of the tub and ledge but gained more walking room with the Lasco Bathware shower pan, which has a significantly thinner ledge rising only six inches off the floor.

To offset the loss of storage space, G & L built within the shower a tiled corner shelf large enough to hold all necessary showering accoutrements: shampoo, soap and hair conditioner.

Another feature the homeowners were able to choose for their customized shower was the 6- by 8-inch Martinique Ice White subway tile for the wall. Westminster Classic sprocket listellos of 1-1/2 by 8 inches and 4- by 4-inch Ice White tile laid on the diagonal create the shower’s inside border, which adds visual interest while maintaining the “crisp, clean, simple lines” the homeowners desired.

Today the market offers many shower fixtures with a variety of features, including body sprays and multiple showerheads. Today’s showerheads offer a range of functions, from massage or pulsating spray to aerated mists.

The Andersons chose a Kohler Memoirs Rite-Temp pressure-balancing shower faucet for their customized shower. It is able to maintain a set water temperature within three degrees Fahrenheit and can be preset to a maximum temperature, which helps prevent scalding.

Danielle Jones advises consumers to take into account a few considerations when choosing to replace a shower/ tub combination with a shower:

• Will putting in a shower make sense within the space available?

• Is removing your tub the right choice for your lifestyle?

• Are you planning to resell your home at any point? Not having at least one tub in the home may limit the number of buyers who are interested by excluding families with small children who need a full bath.

• How big is your water heater? A shower with multiple showerheads might drain the hot water supply too quickly and leave you out in the cold.

Visit our Where to Buy Section for information on purchasing products from this project.