Walk-in shower or normal shower?

[westwardho]

Planning our loft conversion at the moment: one bedroom and separate shower room.

Our existing bathroom is an OK size, but there is only room for an over bath shower, and I'm desperate for a decent shower. So I was hoping to go for a nice, spacious walk-in shower in the loft, with plenty of room for storage too.

The first draft of the plans gives us only enough room for a regular shower. We can in theory make the shower room big enough to accommodate a walk-in shower, but it will eat in to the space in the bedroom (which would become an OK-sized double rather than a good-size double).

Is a walk-in shower worth it, or should we just suck it up and go for a regular size shower? Would love to have a spacious, slightly luxurious shower room, but also have an eye to how the conversion will look to prospective buyers (we are likely to sell in 5 or so years time).

Personally I'd keep the bedroom space. Walk-in showers are nice, but not at the expense of losing space you need elsewhere.

^ what NotGood said. That doesn't mean you cannot still have a lovely shower...in our en-suite we have a 1400x700 "walk in" shower...ie tray pretty much flush to the floor with just a plain glass screen against one end of the recess. Feelsfar, far less enclosed and I lufffs it.

Had 1600x800 shower tray with 1000 clear glass screen in our last house and just putting in one in our current place. We love them, so easy to keep clean with just a squegee and look and feel spacious but I'm not sure I'd sacrifice bedroom space for one if you are struggling to fit it in.

Is this a third or a fourth bedroom?

If it is a 3rd bedroom then I'd go with a regular shower, and a bigger room. If it is the 4th bedroom (so guest room for many), then go for bigger shower.

I lub lub lub my big shower. It has enough space that DH and I can comfortably both shower together (double head plus handheld) if we are in a time crunch. It is also big enough that I can easily wash my dogs in there which is so wonderful.

Thanks for the replies!

It's a fourth bedroom and will, for us, be a guest bedroom / study (although future owners might want to use it as a master bedroom).

Hmm, sounds like those of you with the walk-in showers do appreciate them! I think we will see if we can squeeze just enough extra room for this without compromising too much the space in the bedroom.

HannahD78 - thanks for the link. Useful. Will look at things like floating basins.

We have a spacious enclosed tray corner shower. We invested in a really solid quadrant door for the shower (think £800 not £300), good quality shower fittings and it makes all the difference to our lovely shower room. We took about an extra 15cm out of the bedroom. Still spacious and after all how can you miss what you never had!

Now I love my shower, but it's an over the bath one. Hate my inlaws' one, and it's walk in. Their shower head gives little jabby knives of water, mine is like a warm waterfall. So for me it's the head that matters, not the walkinness

The power and pressure of the shower is the most important thing to me, rather than the fact its over-bath or not. If you're tight on space I'd go for an over bath shower, but get a proper good powerful shower put in. I need something intense to wake me up in the mornings, don't think I could face the day without my power shower!!

Are we talking a proper walk through shower which has say a 1400 screen which in practice means you need 2m to walk around and enter one end?

Or are we talking about a 1400 tray with a screen only half way across and you enter in one half of it?

I wouldn't bother with the 2nd option - you might as well just have a 1200 x 800 alcove shower which is more than generous. You can use the space saved for a storage cupboard or a bigger bedroom.

What matters presumeably is a powerful shower. Hope you are installing a Megaflow or similar for your loft ensuite. Another tip is that modern showers seem to be eco in design to conform with EC standards - well, all the Hansgrohe ones that I looked at/bought were. We have removed the plastic water restrictor in the shower heads to ensure we get maximum water pressure. (My showering excesses is offset by my more slatternly once a fortnight changing of bedlinen and non daily change of PJ's! )