Have You Got a Bath in Your Bathroom?

[Rich1972]

I don't like baths. I haven't had one for years so I'm tempted not to have one fitted in the upstairs bathroom. Losing it will mean I gain a lot more space in the planned area of the bathroom (at the moment it's just an empty grenier) and I won't have to block up a window in the east wall to accomodate a partition. I'm having a bidet put in and there's going to be a separate WC off the landing, so the bathroom will only contain a shower cubicle, bidet and wash basin. Would it be too weird not to have a bath? Would it damage the selling potential of the house in (hopefully many) years time? Do the French expect a bath or would they freak out at the prospect of there not being one fitted? I think people in the UK would expect one. Do you?

[8-)]

[suein56]

[quote user="Rich1972"] I'm having a bidet put in and there's going to be a separate WC off the landing, so the bathroom will only contain a shower cubicle, bidet and wash basin. [/quote]

Gosh that is just too wierd. All our French friends - well those that are doing aménagements anyway - have changed their thinking and taken out the bidets in their bathrooms and have added an extra wc in its place. As they (now) say 'you can't have too many loos'.

To answer your question, most of our French friends do not have any bath at all in their apart/house but our UK friends continue to do so.

So to whom do you envisage selling your house eventually? If French then stick with the shower, if possibly English, then perhaps a bath is a good idea.

Sue

[Rich1972]

The bidet is supposed to be there to entice French buyers!! lol I heard that they prefer both a bidet and a separate WC! There's also going to be a separate WC downstairs anyway. I'm not planning on selling in the near future, and I'm not renovating the property to sell it, but I want to consider these things whilst I've got the chance to make alterations.

[:D]

[Bugsy]

If you're doing the mods on a house to live in surely it makes sense to kit out the bathroom as you want it and not worry about re-sale.

We have both a bathroom with bath and a bathroom with shower. In eight years+ of living here I have yet to try the bath......[:D]

waiting for the comments [:)]

.

[Araucaria]

Our (definitely French!) plumber was very much against the idea of putting any showers in our upstairs bathrooms. He said that - however good the shower - it will always eventually leak. So we have ended up with the only shower downstairs in a "wet room" on concrete where it isn't likely to matter much if it leaks. Though of course we hope it won't.

[Rich1972]

[quote user="Bugsy"]If you're doing the mods on a house to live in surely it makes sense to kit out the bathroom as you want it and not worry about re-sale.

We have both a bathroom with bath and a bathroom with shower. In eight years+ of living here I have yet to try the bath......[:D]

waiting for the comments [:)]

.

[/quote]

I agree with you in principle. I ought to fit the bathroom out for my own usage (and I haven't had a bath for many years either!) But it would be naive of me to think that there won't be a time when the house has to be sold. I guess I'm just trying to consider that eventuality. I suppose young families would want a bath for the kids/babies and maybe older folk too. Ugh. I don't know what to do. I've planned for a bath and the plumber is arriving soon to begin preliminary work on all the plumbing in the house.

These are my options:

a) small bathroom with a bath and no window and a decent-sized third bedroom.

b) larger bathroom with a bath and an east-facing window but a small third bedroom.

c) small bathroom with no bath (lots of walking space) no window but a decent sized third bedroom.

[mint]

Personally, I don't much care if there's a bath or not:  I could never be bothered to wait for a bath to fill.  Not only that, in these environmentally conscious days, people are more inclined to showers.

But a bidet, THAT to me is essential as I use mine at least twice a day and more in the warm weather.

You do what's best for you and, when the time comes to sell, I feel sure a buyer will always look at the sanitary arrangements and think, "I'm going to change that!"  I myself always think like that...........same as with the kitchen!

[AnOther]

I'm planning to put in a bath when I get round to the bathroom, the bidet is out and a 2nd WC going in it's place.

We used to have an enormous roll top claw foot cast iron jobbie in Uk and I loved soaking away the grime and aches and pains of a hard days toil with a bottle of wine and watching one of my favourite TV programmes [:D]

As an aside I spotted a lovely claw foot bath in the local reclaim yard marked up @ €500 [:'(]

I notice that it has gone though, so maybe somebody really did pay that sort of money for it, not me, even at €250 I'd have thought long and hard..............

[Rich1972]

[quote user="Araucaria"]Our (definitely French!) plumber was very much against the idea of putting any showers in our upstairs bathrooms. He said that - however good the shower - it will always eventually leak. So we have ended up with the only shower downstairs in a "wet room" on concrete where it isn't likely to matter much if it leaks. Though of course we hope it won't.

[/quote]

I agree with that in principle and practice. My (also French!) plumber hasn't mentioned it to me yet but I will discuss it with him tomorrow as he's calling around. I love the idea of a wet room but the layout of the house just don't make it practical. All the water works are at the east end of the house. You come into the hallway with a debarras on the left, the stairs and entrance to kitchen on the right and the seperate toilet and boiler cupboard straight-ahead. Fitting in a wet room would've been difficult, especially as I didn't want to have a shower and then come directly out into the entrance hall, which is full of wellingtons, dog beds and dirty dogs. 

[britgirl]

Bugsy wrote " In eight years+ of living here I have yet to try the bath...."

 

Oh Dear!!  Do you have any friends?

I'm a 'shower girl' but every so often in times of stress  the idea of relaxing in a bath is soooo appealing. When I was in France and  now  back in the the U.K. I've been lucky enough to have both a shower room and a traditional bathroom.

As Bugsy has already said, you have to live in it, and only you can decide what YOU need.

Off  for a 'bubbly!!' [:)]

 

[Christine Animal]

What about a corner bath (for the window problem).  Would that make any difference?

 

[Dog]

Had a very old enormous roll top cast iron bath in UK but hardly used it as it took too long to fill and then lost heat very quickly.

Only have showers in the house I live in, my spare house has a bath.

Showers do not have to leak if they are built properly.

[Judith]

In our recent house hunting (now hopefully sorted!), we definitely wanted a bath, but also a shower (in the same place, as part of the bath, or separate - it didn't particularly matter), but a loo in the bathroom was (for me) a definite must.  No bidet required (I've managed all my life without one after all!).

We saw one house with only a shower in the family bathroom - there was plenty of space also to put in a bath - so nul points there.  And one with a beautiful shower room, and the loo next door, in the laundry!  Nul points aussi!

Our current house when we bought it had three shower rooms, and no bath.  Guess what - we put in a bath in the one where it was possible (with a shower over), and we still have two more shower rooms for guests.  I find that in winter I want a bath (nice and warming) and in summer I want a shower (nice and refreshing).

Perhaps if you want to keep your options open, you could put in a bath (supposing there is room), with a shower in the bath. 

[Judith]

[quote user="Dog"]

Showers do not have to leak if they are built properly.

[/quote]

Agreed - all our shower rooms (fully tiled with drain holes, no shower which you "step in to"), are upstairs and as far as I know, do not leak.

[suein56]

[quote user="Judith"] ... all our shower rooms (fully tiled with drain holes, no shower which you "step in to"), are upstairs and as far as I know, do not leak.

[/quote]

Now that is interesting ... we have a bathroom - bath, loo, basin - upstairs, and a shower-room - shower ,basin - separate loo next door - downstairs; so do many of our friends; perhaps the idea of a shower being more prone to leaking than a bath is commonplace.

Sue

[Rich1972]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]

What about a corner bath (for the window problem).  Would that make any difference?

 

[/quote]

Alas no. My sister suggested something similar and unfortunately the bathroom is just the wrong shape i.e. more rectangular than square. I really am in a quandary about this. At the moment I'm tempted to lose the window in the east gable, which gives me enough room to cater for the bath as well as a bit more room in the adjoining bedroom. It does mean losing the double aspect of the bedroom though as well as having to put a Velux in the roof. I'm sure people think that if you buy a long house with an empty loft space you can do whatever you want. If only that were true. I find the limitations posed by the arrangement of the beams, the chimneys and the metre-thick interior walls very constricting! Without a truly massive (and very expensive) total rearrangement of the order of the upstairs and downstairs rooms then there are only so many places where things can go. The bedrooms are pretty much fixed by the internal wall layout and the south-facing windows so I only have the far end of the house to use for a bathroom and third bedroom (plus there's a very low cross-beam I have to work around). It's a typical Charentais farmhouse, i.e. very long but only one room deep with no north-facing windows or doors. The only place a downstairs wet room could go is in the debarras, along with the hen feed, freezers and other junk. I'm starting to think that if I don't put a bath in then I'll regret it, even if it means blocking up the east-facing window.

[Chancer]

I am currently fitting out two virtually identical back to back bathrooms in a 2 studio grenier conversion. spece is really limited and they are tiny, less than one square metre habitable.

My biggest problem was the restricted height under the roof slope and it was actually better to squeeze in a bath with a pare baignoir and  have the shower rose plumbed through the purlins that run transversely across the top, its all very very compact you can even multitask by washing your face and cleaning your teeth whilst sitting on the trone [;-)]

Anyway at first glance one cannot easily see the shower rose, 100% of the French people that have seen it have expressed in shock "il n'y a pas une douche!" when I show them that there is indeed one they say that it is very well done and very good to have both a bath and a shower and knowing me to be usually on the ball they were shocked to think that I thought I would be able to rent an apartment without a shower.

So my response to your question is: A shower is an absolute must, a bath as well is a plus point, a bath with a mixer tap with une douchette on a flexible hose will not cut the mustard, it must be a shower that you can stand up in, albeit in my bathrooms with your head poking out of the velux window [:P]

P.S. I havn't had the luxury of being able to take a bath since summer 2004 when I was delighted to find one in a hostel in Santiago, its something that I really really miss.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Dog"]

Had a very old enormous roll top cast iron bath in UK but hardly used it as it took too long to fill and then lost heat very quickly.

[/quote]Heat loss is a myth if I ever heard one, I was worried about this when I installed my roll top but it was never an issue.

A bath only takes as long to fill as you want but the whole point of a big one is full immersion which necessarily means a fair bit of water. You don't buy a luxury car to go shopping [;-)]

[Russethouse]

Can you buy 'short' baths in France ? Would that work ?

[Rich1972]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Can you buy 'short' baths in France ? Would that work ?[/quote]

Possibly. Width is more an issue than length. I might see what the narrowest bath is that I can get my hands on.

Do I need to put in a declaration de travaux to block up a small, 12x12 window?

[Doodle]

We've got a shower bath with glass screen and we also went for this option in the UK. You can get a short version shower bath or the standard length. One end of the bath is rounded so you have plenty of room for swinging your arms around your head etc ! Suits us very well as we like showers but when you have the occasional bad back a bath is very soothing.

knee gel

[Gardengirl]

Yes, Kneegel, when my back's very bad I really miss a soothing bath in France! The apartments were all planned with baths, apart from the studio apartments, with washing machine in as well. Most people accepted them as planned, but it didn't work for us, so we had a shower put in instead of a bath, plus a bidet, WC and basin, then there's another WC and basin separately. In UK we have a bath with shower and glass screen (or it will have when it's finished!) etc. [:)]

Rich, if it's possible in your place I'd keep a bath; if for no other reason than  you never know when the bad back fairy will strike! [:(]

[Théière]

Isn't a bidet relaxing? [Www]

[Gardengirl]

That depends what you put in it! My son finds his feet are very relaxed after soaking them in the bidet! [:D]

[cooperlola]

Interesting discussion.  I have just had to strip out our bath as it was a corner one which I could no longer get into (they are a real nightmare if you are in the least bit infirm and virtually impossible to keep clean) - I would never have one again, ever, whatever state I was in but it was there when we bought.  We have replaced it with a "douche a l'Italienne" but I admit we have been wondering whether to put a bath upstairs when we finally get to fitting out the new bathroom up there, for exactly the same reason.  One is bound to wonder whether it will affect the re-sale potential of a house or not.  My mother, for instance, won't stay in a hotel even for one night, if it doesn't have a bath as she hates showers and I doubt if she's alone in her attitude.