To Shower or Not to Shower

Just kidding. You should always shower. This blog however isn't if you should literally take a shower or not but whether or not it matters if your master bath has BOTH shower and bathtub.

It seems that I get asked this question more and more these days: Does it matter if the master bathroom doesn't have a bathtub? This question typically is followup by a series of questions to determine if the lack of the tub hurts the resale value of a home.

Here's how I try to direct my clients in making the best informed decision.

1. Is the bathroom you currently have laid out correctly? I think this is the main issue. A lot of times the builder will shove both shower and tub in a master bath room just to say it has both when the layout is t.e.r.r.i.b.l.e..... you end up with a standard size tub and the worlds smallest shower. In this case I think removing the tub and extending the shower makes perfect sense- especially good resale sense.

Heres a client's home where the shower was tiny and the tub took up most of the room. We removed the old shower all together as well as the tub. The new shower now sits where the tub once was!

2. Ask yourself the question- if I remove the bathtub will I gain more space somewhere else? Is your shower taking up your master closet? Yes you heard me correctly! This seems to be an ongoing problem. What in the world was the builder thinking? In this case we removed the shower out of the closet and relocated it where the tub was to gain a larger closet. This made good and perfect sense!

Below is a past clients who's closet was literally sitting in her master closet!! We removed the shower and gave them a larger closet and replaced the tub with a larger shower.

Final question:

3. Do you ever take a bath? Now I am a bath girl. I love my bathtub but the more I meet people I find out that some people just never take baths. I think in this case its probably not the best use of your budget to buy something you'll never use.

All in all I let my clients know that if they have one tub in the home- to bathe a child, pets etc then I think its all they need. But Im all ears- what do you guys think?