If you renovated a hall bathroom with a tub/shower combo, to be used by guests and/or kids, would you install a curtain rod or a glass door/screen? What should be considered when making this decision?
We are probably going to be selling in 5-6 years, so I’m wondering what might appeal to new buyers. We use that bath only when adult children and guests are here but it’s the only tub in the house, so would be the only place to bathe small children. Doors offer a cleaner, more finished look but the track for a sliding door makes sitting on the edge of the tub quite uncomfortable! OTH, a hinged door that would swing out into the fairly small room might be awkward, especially with kids. I have also seen pics of ‘screens’ (a panel of frameless glass on the tub’s edge) online but I’m not sure that’s a good idea either. Maybe I’m overthinking it…
I think I’d do the curtain. If the next owners want doors, they can easily make that choice.
If this is being used by guests with young kids, a door only offers access to half of the tub area…the curtain can be fully pulled aside for baths for tiny kids.
And, until you sell…you can change curtains to just redecorate, or you can change curtains if they get gross looking.
And…curtain is far less costly than some of the options you listed for doors.
I hate glass enclosures on baths… most need frames, and crud tends to accumulate where glass meets metal. Rod/curtain is my choice for shower/bath combos.
there is a strip of metal where the glass meets the tub. That is where the crud collects… that is the frame I am talking about. Plus, to clean the glass, one needs to climb into the tub (instead of walking into the shower).
Frameless is great…but if the next folks don’t want it, these current owners (who don’t use this bathroom themselves) will have spent a lot of money for naught.
If these owners were using this themselves, I’d say…get what you want. But for a house that will be sold? Go for a nice curtain.
I did a rod and curtain. My rod curves out and I love that. I also ordered “hotel” style waffle shower curtain from Pottery Barn. A bit pricey ($80 iirc) but I love the look.
There are “frameless” Euro-style splash guards for bathtubs. I dislike them. One needs to climb into the tub to turn the faucet on (or the tub needs to be designed with the faucet on the opposite side of the showerhead.
Struggling with a similar question. We have run into trouble with water getting around the shower curtain and onto the wall (wallboard) and baseboard next to the tub. Now they need to be fixed. Maybe our tubs are longer than normal and needed longer curtains. Or maybe the bathroom walls should have been tiled. This happened in more than one bathroom, on both ends of the tub though moreso toward the back end, and we’re not sure whether to install doors instead.
We have always had a shower curtain in our kids bathroom (the hall one). We use a shower curtain liner which stays IN the bathtub. The actual fabric curtain goes outside.
If you use only a curtain (one that doesn’t require a liner) it has to be inside the tub during showers.
In addition, the shower curtain rod needs to be placed so that it’s on the inside plane (at the edges at least) so that any water that does gather will fall right back into the tub.
We have never had a speck of damage to anything in our bathrooms. Oldest kid is 34.
Rod and curtain. If the new owners want a sliding glass door, let them put it in.
You can train your kids to keep the liner IN the tub. It’s very uncomfortable to bathe a young child with a metal edge. Plus, those doors collect a lot of grime on the edge attached to the tub.
When we redo our 2nd bathroom we will have a shower curtain with a curved rod. I like to take baths sometimes and showers others and I absolutely hate the door when I take a bath.
With the stand alone shower in the master it would be different.
For possible sale, especially to families with young children, a bath with curtain rather than sliding door, would be preferable for access to little kids in bath seats etc. A sliding door limits your ability to access part of the tub, a worrisome prospect when there are little ones in a bath chair or sliding around in there by themselves.
For older kids, who shower and then don’t pull the curtain close to the wall so that water seeps into the surrounding area (like my family), a sliding door would be preferable.
With re-sale on the horizon, I’d do curtain and rod, so that families with young children see it as do-able.
Frameless door. It’s easy to keep clean and there is no annoying track to gunk up. But you will need to squeegee after showering to keep it clear of water marks, something many kids like to do. And there are some adults who don’t have the sense to keep the curtain liner IN the tub (we have friends who own a B&B and they’ve told us horror stories), so this might be a bigger deal for kids. Curtains also get dirty and will eventually mold enough to need replacing (the labels totally lie!) I think it will help you sell your home if you have a clean, streamlined door rather than a curtain, which can look cheap or dated.
If you’re worried about space, there are frameless sliding doors.
Our house came with one bathroom, in the hall, with a tub/shower combo with a sliding glass door. I always hated that door. It made it hard to bathe our daughter when she was small. The track collected grime and hair and was a nuisance to clean. I would have preferred a curtain and rod – which is what we put in when we redid the bathroom a few years ago.