Tub vs. No Tub for Your Highland Park Bathroom Renovation

One of the most commonly asked questions when designing a bathroom in the Highland Park area is in regard to eliminating a tub.  Regardless of how many bathrooms you have in your home, you may struggle with the idea of eliminating a tub in order to make it a shower.  Realtors and friends alike will second the motion that it is a good idea to have at least one tub in your house for resale.  The foundation of this premise is if a young family moves in then the appeal of the tub exists.  This allows easier bathing for young children.  Even a glass shower enclosure interferes with bathing and therefore a shower curtain would make it easier for bathing kids or grandchildren.

Keep in mind this obviously can be temporary, as kids grow they become more independent and typically evolve to wanting to take showers most of the time.  Usually this is simply due to getting out of bed at that last possible moment and only allowing just enough time to get out the door and head to school.  So why do you need multiple tubs in your home?  Our answer is simple.  You don’t!

We often ask the client a series of questions to see how they answer before helping them decide if eliminating a tub is the best option for them and their situation.  For instance, how long do you plan to live in your home?  Are you doing this bathroom remodeling project for you or to sell your house in the near future?  Do you plan to “age in place”?  Do you foresee one of your parents moving in to your guest bedroom?

Shower Design Options

Shower spaces can be creatively designed to incorporate whatever you can imagine from heated seats, heated flooring, spacious seating and even windows (as shown to the right) to let the light shine in.  Curved walls are always unique and add a fun and elegant factor.  The shower above has 3 body sprays that are directional, an adjustable hand shower for easy cleaning and a fixed head as the primary everyday shower head.  It never hurts to have options especially if your shower area is large enough to handle it.

As mentioned above, it is important to keep in mind who are you remodeling this bathroom for and what are the needs for it.  For example, when designing the bathing with the aging in mind, we want to maintain appropriate heights of cabinetry and seats.  We would typically install blocking in the wall to provide strong anchors to withstand the test of time for a grab bar, select faucets with easy to use handles for arthritic hands and flooring material that provides a non-slip aspect…just to mention a few.