· by Michael Blair, Nashville's Kitchen & Bath
The question comes up in almost every bathroom remodel: keep the tub, or take it out and build a proper shower in the space. For the person doing the remodel the answer is usually obvious, because they have not taken a bath in years. For the house, it is less obvious. The right answer is different for the primary bathroom, for the hall bathroom the kids and guests use, and for a house that will be sold in the next few years.
What you gain by removing the tub
A standard tub alcove is five feet by thirty inches. Turned into a shower, that same footprint takes a bench, a niche, a glass panel instead of a curtain and a floor you can step into without lifting a leg over a wall. In a small bathroom it is the only way to get a shower that does not feel like a phone booth, and it is the change that makes a bathroom usable for anyone with a bad hip or knee.
It also drops the water use and the cleaning. A tiled shower with a linear drain and a single glass panel is easier to keep clean than a tub surround, and there is no caulk line at the tub deck to fail.
What you give up
A bathtub is how small children get washed. It is also how a dog gets washed, how a sore back gets soaked, and how some people simply prefer to bathe. A house with no tub at all narrows its buyer pool to people without small children, and in Nashville family neighborhoods that is a real share of the market.
The general resale guidance from agents is that a house should keep at least one tub, and it does not have to be in the primary bathroom. A primary bath with a large shower and a hall bath with a tub is the combination most buyers are looking for. Removing the last tub in the house is the version that costs you at sale.
Deciding by room
Primary bathroom: go shower, in most cases. The people using it are adults, the space is better spent on a shower you actually enjoy, and a soaking tub that gets used twice a year is expensive floor area. The exception is a large primary bath where a freestanding tub fits without squeezing the shower; then it is a preference, not a trade.
Hall or secondary bathroom: keep the tub, and make it a good one. A tub-shower combination with a proper tile surround and a decent showerhead serves children, guests and the next owner. If this is the only full bathroom in the house, keeping the tub is close to non-negotiable.
- Only one full bath in the house: keep a tub
- Two or more full baths: primary goes shower, one other keeps a tub
- Aging in place: shower with a bench and a low or no curb
- Selling soon: match what the neighborhood’s buyers expect
What the conversion actually involves
It is not a swap. The drain moves from the tub location to the center of the shower or to a linear drain at the wall, the floor gets a properly sloped pan and a waterproofing system, the walls get a waterproof backer and membrane before the tile, and the valve is usually replaced and raised. This is plumbing and waterproofing work, and it needs a permit from Metro Codes when the drain moves.
Prefabricated one-day conversions exist. They cover the old tub area with an acrylic pan and panels and can look fine, but they do not enlarge the space, the pan sits on the old tub floor level, and they are hard to repair. For a bathroom you plan to keep, tile over a proper pan is the durable version.