To bath or not to bath..... New bathroom question

[TheNinthLock]

We are having the bathroom in our 3 bed semi replaced. It is your typical 3 bed with two double bedrooms and a small single.
Some might say, the typical home a young family with small children may buy. (Our children are young adults, one on the cusp of moving out, one returning from uni this summer, dh and I are mid 50s, none of us bathe, we all shower)

We would love to replace the bath with a walk-in shower. But due to selling in a number of years, we were advised by friends and family to keep the bath as it would help with selling. (Due to the property being the type purchased by young families) So we reconciled ourselves with the idea of a bath.

So, long story short, had the builder round today who said " Half the people would prefer a bath, the other half a walk-in shower. Put it what you want, not what may sell, it needs to work for you for the next 3-5 years"

So, is my builder right? Shall we have a nice walk-in shower? Or should we stick to a bath with shower over?

I'd do what you want. Yes some people will want a bath but you're not even planning on selling for at least 3 years which is a long time to compromise for someone else who may buy the house and change the bathroom regardless.

We put in both , had the new bathroom about 18 months . I've bathed about a dozen times dh never , if we have guests they all shower .
However can see your dilemma if you are definitely moving within 5 years so would probably put in bath with shower over .

I need a bath to soak my aching limbs after a weekend's hard graft in the garden.
Young children love playing in the bath - can't do this with a shower.

I wouldn't want a house with no bath if I had young children.

Baths are fairly easy to remove if people don't want it - a little harder to install if the space has been modified.

I say keep.

Could you fit in a Japanese soaking tub and still have room for a nice big shower? That would give you the best of both worlds.

I hate baths and love a shower so I’d always go fur a shower. Could you design your bathroom in a way that if someone wanted to replace with a shower it wouldn’t mean rejigging the toilet and sink?

I wouldn’t buy a house without a bath, even though I only have half a dozen each year. I’m early 50’s.
Your house will likely sell to a family with younger children. They will probably want a bath, whereas people who prefer showers would still be able to shower and just not use the bath.

My dm asked me this about 15 years ago: imo it was more sensible to think about her living in the house and ageing rather than the potential difficulty of selling the house without a bath. She had the bath removed. My dm died last year and none of the people viewing the house mentioned anything about there being no bath.

We had exactly this with DH’s parents’ house - they made the same decision and, after they died, the buyer was very difficult about just about everything but the bathroom, oddly enough!

I'm looking for our next house right now, and any house with no bath gets negative points from me BUT I am inclined to agree with your builder. You are living there- put in what works for you and your family.

They may well walk in anyway and not like your taste, 5 years is a long time, fashions change, put in the shower!

If you have a walk in shower in an en suite then Id say bath and don't redo before moving, plus who knows if you might need to soak muscles or take epsom baths etc, if no en suite then do what suits you now

I would go for shower, however I'd leave room such that you don't have to move the loo if you do change the shower for a bath..

I've asked this exact question here before and was told bath absolute must and no one will ever buy our house without a bath! When do you foresee yourself moving? If you're there another 5+ years then do what you want IMO.

I put in a shower for us because we'll be living with it for about 5 years. I'm disabled so it's easier, teens never bathed so it made sense.
What our plumber advised was to put in a tray the size of the bath and leave the pipework/other fixtures so it would be easy to adapt back (and not involve a full refit). The plumber also said its becoming very common for him to remove baths for showers. I'd also imagine with the cost of water /gas to heat it more people will choose showers.

I think a bath is important if you think you'd be selling to a family with young children., is that likely to be who is viewing your house? Now sure how I'd wash my 4 years olds hair in a walk in shower. But then if I loved the house so much I'd probably still buy it just put my own bath in.
I feel op your builder is right it'll put some off some it won't do your call but I'd say bath is safer option overall

Your builder is right. If you want a shower just get a shower.

When you do sell, a potential buyer isn’t going to walk away just because there isn’t a bath, if the house is otherwise perfect for them. They’ll just budget to get a bath put in.

My first house didn’t have a bath when I bought it, only a walk in shower. I got the shower cubicle taken out and a bath put in instead. I got a ‘shower bath’ where there is room for showering at one end, and left the shower attachment on the wall above it. Didn’t cost an awful lot and didn’t need to redo the whole bathroom.

And if you slightly over on tiles now, you can keep a box spare in case any patching up is required if anyone does ever want to fit a bath.

This is what I did (in a small bathroom) and it works really well. A bathroom without a bath would put me off buying...or at least I'd have a plan to put one back in. Sometimes only a soak in the bath will do.

Apart from the selling it aspect, some times things happen where having a bath is a good thing - if you want a good soak if you have aching muscles, helps with eczema for hydration or to try to get out a splinter that kind of thing. I think you would regret it long term.

Even if some people would buy without a bath, you are halving your market which in turn reduces likelihood of getting a good price or a mini-bidding war.

We bought a house without a bath. It didn't put us off because we loved the house so much. Now we have a family and we're going to put a bath in ourselves.

Get the shower and your buyer can install one in future if they want one. 3-5 years is ages away. Even if you end up having to reduce the sale price by £1k in future to accommodate a buyer's costs of replacing with a bath in it would.be well worth it for the quality and ease of.life while you live there.

Make sure your shower has the same footprint as a bath with no odd waste / plumbing configurations and it's an easy swap around, especially if you use something like Multipanel rather than tiling.

We seem to have had the same type of buyer! Mine was such a pain in the arse I told the estate agent after the sale completed to tell the buyer I had left the country with no forwarding address!

Thank you all. I was having a wobble so it’s nice to hear opinions regarding either option and it gave us food for thought.
I think we will go with shower. It’s what we both want, we both detest sitting in a bath but love a good invigorating shower.
Shower will go in location of existing bath, toilet and sink will be replaced but stay in same location. So a swap back to a bath should be straight forward.
We may be here up to another 5 years (we have vague plans of retiring / semi retiring and moving away from South East in the next 3 to 5 years ) and that’s a long time to be climbing in and out of a bath to have a shower 😁

That’d be my approach. An 1,800 x 6/7/800mm shower, even tiled, is very easy to swap for a bath if / when needed. As the tiles will go almost to the floor slotting a bath in instead of a shower tray is easy. You just need to think a little about the plumbing for the taps - but it’s easily done. I think it’s a shame that people spend so much time and money making their house ideal for the next person, rather than what they are going to enjoy for maybe 5 or even 10 years!