Bathrooms are some of the home’s most intimate rooms that deserve plenty of thought and attention. If you’re making major changes to your bathroom, you’ll be faced with some questions like, “What color should we paint the walls?”. Yet, few of those questions are as pressing as, “Should we get a bathtub or a shower?”
Keeping clean is extremely important, but only homeowners should decide once they’ve weighed all the pros and cons and assessed their unique situations.
Bathtubs
If your bathroom is more on the spacious side, a bathtub is worth considering. Moreover, bathtubs can help your home’s resale value if you’re looking to resell your home. Some realtors swear by them, and some homeowners thought they were so crucial that they added them just before they flipped their homes.
Many homeowners seek out properties with bathtubs because they offer a level of relaxation that showers can’t replicate. Imagine coming home exhausted after a physically draining day. A bathtub helps you relax and get clean. Unless you’ve got built-in seats in a huge walk-in shower, you won’t enjoy that same comfort level.
There are two types of bathtubs – inset tubs & freestanding tubs. You can install inset styles into walls, while freestanding tubs are standalone tubs that you can move around. Insets styles are apparently more budget-friendly and often take up less space than freestanding tubs. However, the latter affords homeowners more flexibility if they ever want to tweak their bathroom’s layout in the future.
Bathtubs are excellent for families with young children. It’s much easier bathing an infant than giving them a shower. Bathtubs let you scrub your child thoroughly while remaining relatively dry. In comparison, your best bet at staying dry while helping your toddler take a shower might be wearing a raincoat while you’re in there with them.
Despite these things, bathtubs have their drawbacks. If your bathroom is a little cramped, getting a bathtub will only take up more of the much needed floor space. Freestanding tubs, in particular, can command a lot of space. Many interior designers recommend having at least 10 millimeters of space between the tub’s edges and any surrounding walls.
Showers
If you’re trying to maximize your bathroom’s floor space, getting a shower stall might be your best bet. According to Holzmann Interiors, the average bathtub is about 15 square feet, and the average shower is about 12 square feet. The average American family’s bathroom is roughly 40 square feet. In this case, installing a shower in your bathroom saves you 7% more floor space than installing a bath would. That’s more than a little wiggle room for your some extra shelves, cabinets and other storage amenities.
Showers are particularly enticing to environmentally conscious homeowners. Depending on the length of your shower, you stand to save hundreds of dollars in yearly water and energy costs. In addition, showers come with a variety of water-saving, pressure settings. In addition to saving water, showers can help you save time. Running a bath can take a while, and, depending on the situation, you might be pressed for time. If you want to get clean quickly, showers are the solution..
Most showers are far less cumbersome to clean than bathtubs. In fact, some homeowners like to put a protective coat of Ezicleen on their shower glass. This repels all the soap scum and helps them get the grime off in a couple of wipes.
Showers have their advantages but they’re not perfect. First, showers aren’t ideal for families with young children. Also, if you don’t put any Ezicleen on your shower glass, you’ll have to clean it routinely. The same goes for homeowners who use shower curtains. You need to clean shower curtains often to keep them sanitary. Lastly, shower leaks are more difficult and expensive to fix than similar issues with bathtubs.
If you’re looking for a new home in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Grand Homes will happily go over all our offerings and help you find the perfect home with all your bathroom needs. Click here to get in touch with us immediately.
