I have a big ol’ clawfoot tub, and no shower. I’m seriously thinking about rigging it up for a shower. I really miss the shower, but I’d miss the tub if I didn’t have it. I think I can do it for a couple hundred bucks. And then get the suspended, circular shower curtain thing goin’ on.
My parents’ home just has a shower, no bathtub. The key is that they have a hot tub. You’ve got to have one or the other, as far as I’m concerned.
Way back when, I had a girlfriend with just a tub, no shower. That would be the worst of all combinations. Gotta have a shower.
I think that it’s easier to make a bathtub into a shower than it is to make a shower into a bathtub 
Therefore, yes a bathtub is important.
I had an apartment when I was in college, well, actually, it was a house that had been divided into apartments, and it had the tub-no-shower dealie. I bought one of those hand-held sprayers that slide over the faucet and it helped for rinsing, especially after a shampoo, but I had neither the cash nor the tools to rig up a pseudo-shower. Maybe that’s where my dislike of tubs was born.
And I suppose if space was no object, I wouldn’t mind having a mega-tub. Still, I’d rather have 2 sinks and a big shower over the tub. Although a big old clawfoot tub would be kinda neat.
Our house has a shower in the master and a tub only in the guest. Rather, had, as we’ve gutted the guest bathroom for remodeling. We’re going to put a whirlpool and shower in the guest. We’ll eventually add a whirlpool tub to the master, but it’ll require expanding our bathing area. Our entire master bathroom is only about 5’ x 6’, so those of you with showers that size: your shower is as big as my entire bathroom!
We’re going to buy a Sanijet pipeless whirlpool bath (just waiting on the income tax check), so we shouldn’t have quite the problem with germs as other whirlpools.
P.S. Slight hijack: Does anyone use a tankless water system? Do you like it? I figure that a large tub would need it to keep from running out of hot water.
I stayed in a hotel that had a tub-sized shower stall, a 3x5 flat floor pan with glass walls. It was great for showering - much easier to fit more than one person too. 
Still, for a house, I require a tub for the kids. I can’t expect the kids to shower successfully.
My wife would vote for the oversized soaking tub, preferably with jets. She loves baths.
Love tubs, and wouldn’t buy a new house with a master bath unless it had a tub.
What I don’t like is showers and tubs built for two people. I hate shower nookie. I don’t like water in my face. And the idea behind a long soak is to relax in solitude, not get all hot and bothered.
Not having a tub of any kind and no room to add one would be a deal breaker for me.
I have to second the “need a tub for the kids” and also the dogs. I suppose I could wrestle with a dog in the shower if it had a removalable shower head thing, but still harder than in a tub.
But personally, I only take a bath when I need to soak sore muscles, which is not often.
Pretty much “me too” as far as I’m concerned.
I like a big tub - preferably spa style. If I had to, I could do without, but wouldn’t like it.
More importantly, as others have said, any family unit with small kids and/or pets to be bathed is gonna require a tub. So the resale issue is there regardless of your own preferences.
I take a shower pretty much every day, and soak in a tub only once every now and then. Since a house with 2+ bathrooms is the norm in my life, I could easily do with just a shower in the master bath, and have the usual tub/shower combo in the downstairs bath.
I’d really love to have either a hot tub, or just a regular tub that was long or deep enough to get the knees and chest underwater at the same time.
I use a shower daily, but I love soaker tubs. I don’t need jets, or whirlpools, or anything fancy, just a tub big enough that I can actually lie down in it.
We’ve been living in our hew home for 6 months now. It has one of those garden tubs with a jacuzzi and a view window. The bathroom also has a shower. Neither my wife or I have used the tub yet. And guests have not used the tub in the second bathroom; they seem to prefer the shower also.
Normally I would only use a bathtub if I was sick and wanted to lay there and soak…but now I use the spa which is outdoors. I can really stretch out and the jets are great!
Basically, I am not a bath person. But I’m clean!
Bathing is a disgusting barbaric habit. Let’s sit around in a warm wet body of water full of the filth that was on me all day. Yeah. Greeeeeaaaat. Maybe if you showered first… No it would still remind me of sitting in a bucket of used mop water.
broccoli!, you can rinse yourself if you have a bath & one of those super duper special nozzle thingys that attach to the tub faucet. The women who use my bath really like that for some other reason
I want a claw-footed tub. They’re big enough for two, not for tub nookie, just friendly soaking and unwinding. Most of the quality conversation between me and Leifsdad happens in the shower.
Bath tub and shower combo is important. I use both equally. No spa type tubs here. Both my mother and father have them and I can’t see how you’d clean them without having to get inside and getting all messy yourself.
That’s the problem I had with the one we had. There was no way to clean it without actually getting into the tub - between the depth and the width, it was impossible for me to reach all surfaces. So then I wound up covered in whatever cleaning product I was using, and more than once, I slipped.
Not that cleaning my shower is that much easier, but at least when I rinse the tile, I can rinse myself. The usual process is to shower, then clean the shower, then rinse the shower and self before exiting. A better process would be to hire someone to clean the shower, but I’m too cheap for that.
My old house had two full bathrooms; one having a tub, and the master bath having just a shower.
Turned out that the shower-only en-suite bathroom hurt my resale value, because almost every house in the town, where almost every house was built in the past 10 to 15 years, had master baths with big soaker/Roman/garden tubs. It was just something that people expected.
Think about this … what if you ate all your meals out? You didn’t need a kitchen, so you didn’t get one. When you sell your house, you’re hoping that you can find someone who eats all their meals out, like you … and you just might. Still, though, the lack of a kitchen would be a deal breaker for almost everyone.
Get the tub.
FairyChatMom says:
I use a swivel scrub pad thingy that attaches to a four foot long stick to clean my shower/tub combo. A couple of times a week right after my shower, I squirt some general cleanser in the tub and go over all surfaces with the swivel scrub thing. It swivels (duh) so I can cover all angles. I then rinse the surfaces and I hang the scrub pad to dry. The whole process takes about a minute and ensures I don’t have to kneel down or fall in the tub.
As for the OP, I have a 1 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath condo. I had asked the building manager if I could remodel my bathroom and take out the tub and she said yes. This would be great because I really don’t like baths.
Thank you, medstar, I’m going to find me one of those swivel scrubbers. I’ve been struggling with cleaning my great new huge tub.
We remodeled the bathroom and the one thing I wanted was a big enough tub to stretch out, but no jets to worry about. The tub is 70" (end to end, including a little shelf, so tub itself is less), takes up probably more than 1/2 of the bathroom, and it’s GREAT. I even have a sprayer hose hooked up to the cold-in sink pipe to spray it down with.
Soaking in my own filth doesn’t bother me one bit. Also I often use Epsom salts and baking soda in the water along with some lavender oil, maybe that kills some germs.
We recently remodeled our Master Bathroom. It had a conventional tub with a handheld shower thingie. It was a pain. We installed an oversized soaker tub w/jets. I have always believed that showers were made for macho men like me and tubs were for delicate women.
With this new tub, I have taken 90 percent more baths than my delicate wife. I love that damn thing! Nothing more relaxing at the end of the day. Do what you want, but if you do put in a tub, I recommend an oversized soaker.