Would you buy house without a bath?

[StuckInARug]

We’re planning a bathroom renovation for a house we’re buying. House has a small toilet / shower room on ground floor (which we will eventually turn into toilet only), and a bathroom (separate toilet / bath room) on first floor. Long term plan is to convert loft and have a big bathroom there. For day one, we will only renovate the bathroom on the first floor. I think it’s too small for a separate bath & walk in shower so I’m planning on ditching the bath and just having shower. My concern is making the house unsellable, we don’t plan on ever selling but who knows what the future holds, eh?

would the lack of a bath put you off buying a house?

only if i could get one fitted

Absolutely! We only ever have showers and a bath is just something else to clean.
At my mum's house there is a separate shower and a bath - we have only ever used the bath to dump wet towels in after the beach, and once to attempt to wash the dog in (this resulted in having to deep clean the whole bathroom, so never again, now he gets washed outside hahahaha)
My gran used to have baths but now she is very elderly a walk in shower is so much easier for her.

Keep the shower in the downstairs loo, why did you want to rip it out? Then keep a bath upstairs with an overhead shower like most houses have. This will make it more saleable and more practical if you have children later.

I've just bought a house with the exact format, downstairs showerroom & upstairs bathroom. I've got two early teens so a downstairs showerroom is essential. Dh plays sports several times a week so he can use the downstairs shower while I soak in the bath upstairs.

I wouldn’t buy without a bath unless the bathroom looked pretty huge which yours doesn’t .

Yes it would put me off. Bathing the kids and dog. I lie in the bath for an hour (topping up the bath with hot water, and read).

I would want a bath somewhere in the house.

I'm disabled and a hot bath can help with pain and I also have a skin condition that sometimes needs baths with certain treatments.

If you never intend to sell will you / could you need a bath at some time in the future?

I wouldn't rule it out. I love my power shower and think sitting in skinflake soup is overrated. But a bathtub can be useful for other purposes e.g. hand washing large items.

Wow so many responses. Thanks everyone. It sounds like if we’re considering selling we would do well to keep the bath. For those who have asked, it’s a large family home - 4 beds semi, potential for another 1-2 bedrooms once loft converted.

I don’t really like showers over baths - hence my preference for a nice large walk in shower. I have children and my youngest still does baths but I wonder for how much longer? She is 5.

Also to say, I think it will be our “forever” home but all of your responses have made me re-think - maybe we could fit in a small plunge bath?

A small plunge bath would do me.

Personally, I would hate a plunge bath. That’s the worst of all options for me.

If would be fine if the shower was a decent size (walk in or big corner one). We bought a house with no bath when the DC were almost 2 & 3.5. It was fine showering them as there was enough space to sit them down and lean in to shampoo their hair without getting wet ourselves. Would've been a pain in the arse if it was a small cubicle.

We're also considering removing the only bath in our house, but dithering. What is a plunge bath?

My DCs stayed with baths till their early teens but I think that's fairly unusual. I feel claustrophobic in shower cubicles and don't like the blast of cold air when you open the door hence preferring shower over bath. I only actually have a bath a few times a year though.

I'd want a bath with a young dc. Otherwise don't use it.

Make it a proper lush large shower - the sort that doesn’t need doors etc and you will be ok. My parents did this when a bath became inaccessible for them.

a tiny cheap cubicle and I’d be put off

No especially if it was a decent sized walk-in shower which replaced the original bath. A family member recently sold their house in this situation- went quickly at over asking price. There was also room to expand into the loft so a bath could also have been installed there. 🌹

I don’t really like showers over baths - honestly OP, they have improved a lot over the years, they're not like when we were young.

Something like this feels like being in a stand-alone shower.

I would get a house without a bath if everything else was perfect, but I do love a nice bath, and spend hours reading in the bath, so I think I would miss it.

We have a beautiful shower over the bath, its a massive rainfall old fashioned head, and has concealed pipework and no tap handles, only old fashioned levers, so you turn one way to have the big head on like a drenchy rainfull and then turn the lever the other way to have the smaller shower head come on which is lower down, then another leaver if you want to fill the bath

That should say rain fall!!

On threads like these, you are basically asking if people prefer a bath. Yes, lots do.

But in reality, buyers would be measuring your property without a bath, against other properties with a bath. It would be one item on a long list of pros and cons. In practice, a buyer who liked your property would very likely buy it, bath or no, if it ticked lots of other boxes for them. And they would pay the cost of installing a bath so that their new home suited them.

In short, rip out the bath to suit yourself.

And lever

I swear I am getting senile

I would because I never take baths - I get too hot and too much faff, I want to be in and out, but I would expect a luxury bath sized shower rather than a tiny cubicle.