Shower in main bathroom, bath in en-suite

[cunningplan101]

Would the above set-up put you off a property? If the only shower was in the main shared bathroom (albeit a luxurious walk-in shower of your dreams), and the only bath was in the en-suite off the master bedroom.

I guess this is the reverse of what people normally do? The reason I'm thinking of it is that the en-suite doesn't have enough head height for a shower (in the eaves), while the main bathroom doesn't really have enough space for a bath + sep shower. And ideally I really would love a walk-in shower, not a shower over a bath.

I sometimes happen upon threads and think, "oh that's just like me" only to find it was, in fact me who started the thread .... I thought this might be such an occasion but for once it's not!

We are actually currently doing just that. Having to replace the cracked shower tray in our en suite set me thinking. The bath in the family bathroom was used about 2 or 3 times a year. The shower over it was never used because the slope on the bath made it difficult to get under what was not a particularly powerful shower (we have water pressure issues which are beyond out control). This meant that our 3 teenagers were constantly traipsing through our bedroom to use the shower in there.

I was all in favour of doing away with a bath completely but we decided to just swap. So family bathroom has today had the bath ripped out and a nice big shower enclosure is being installed tomorrow. Then we will have the cracked shower tray removed from the en suite and a small bath (1500 length) installed. We'll leave the shower there and add a screen so we can still have a shower in the en suite.

Unless you're planning on moving in the near future I would go for what will work best for you. The big bath was great for 3 small boys to use at the same time, but it has hardly been used for years and I'm annoyed with myself that we've put up with a wholly unsatisfactory arrangement for so long!

If all the plumbing is in place it probably wouldn't be a huge job for a future owner to change things around again so don't let that put you off.

This was the set up we went for at our last house - although there was also an additional shower room in a former annex on the ground floor.

In our case the 'family' bathroom we inherited when we purchased the Georgian property, was so tiny it was far better suited to being a shower room with large walk-in shower.

We converted a bedroom to an ensuite bathroom with free-standing bath.....but, this was also accessible from the original bedroom door on the landing so in theory it could have been reconfigured to a family bathroom by blocking up the entrance from the master bedroom.

When we did the work it wasn't our intention to sell - losing a bedroom isn't always a good idea - but our buyers (a family of five) loved the set up and intended to keep the bath for adult use whilst the kids (8,12 & 14) would have the showers....

This would not work as well with younger kids obviously!

WE have a shower in one bathroom and a bath in the other
but neither is an ensuite as I dislike ensuites

That really wouldn't put me off. As more people have showers anyway so it would make sense to have a shower in he main bathroom and a bath in the en suite. In fact it's a bloody marvellous way to do things.

It would be fine if the rest of the house was what we wanted. If I didn't want the house, but couldn't put my finger on why, I'd probably use the bathroom's as the reason to the estate agent.

FWIW, I would probably put the kids in the "master" with the bath, and we would have another bedroom, and use the main bathroom. Only sharing when we had guests would be OK - and guests would probably like access to a shower, rather than just a bath.

We have large power shower in family bathroom and just a bath in ensuite. Works well as DH, DS and guests only ever want a quick shower and I get to happily wallow in a bath uninterrupted.

Small children need supervising when bathing anyway so I don't think a young family would be necessarily put off by having to bath the kids in the ensuite instead of the family bathroom.

I find it unlikely to be a deal-breaker if you were selling.

If you aren't planning on moving soon then just do what works best for you as its your home and you should be enjoying it as best you can. You only live once and all that

hmm, I wouldn't love it but then I have a nanny for my 2yo twins and wouldn't want them to be traipsing through my bedroom every time they put the kids in the bath. But that's a relatively specific concern and possibly more a London/big city issue.

I would love it, as DH is the only one to have baths here (we have young DC but they have showers too), so would be fine to only have one in an ensuite at least his bath scum could be hidden from visitors then I have never known a guest of ours have a bath rather than a shower, so would be best for the nice shower to be in the bathroom that guests would use

It won't be a deal breaker for me because DH and I don't bath. But thinking logistically, the only children that baths are young ones, and they are washed by their parents anyway. I wouldn't mind my baby and 3yo using the ensuite. And by the time she can wash herself she would be using the shower.

And unless you are selling very soon you should go for what works for your family. If there is plumbing and space there is no problem changing it. And give it 15-20 years, it's a line green suite equivalent that new buyers will rid anyway.

Thanks so much for the replies. Sounds like it's a goer then! We're not planning to sell for the next few years, so think I'll take the advice that it makes sense to do what works for us now.

FreeButton - I totally understand that pov and was expecting more people to agree with you, really. But AddictedToSugar makes a good point I hadn't really thought of, that the kids could maybe go in the bedroom with the en-suite bath and the parents in one of the other rooms as they're pretty similar in size.

And, hopefully, it'll still be obvious that the family bathroom is big enough for a bath + shower over bath, if a potential future buyer wanted to restore that arrangement.

We had to do this with ours when we added on the side extension as the easiest way to make the walk through to the new bedroom was to take space from the main bathroom. So we now have a large-ish shower in the "main" bathroom - which is small, but no smaller than the main bathroom in my parents' 1990s new build - and an L-shaped bath in the en suite so we can have a decent shower in there as well.

We have no plans to move and it works well for us - any visitors usually have showers anyway and only family members have baths.