Many design and building professionals recommend that homeowners have at least one bathtub in a house. For owners who prefer a larger shower in their primary bathroom, that often means a guest or kids’ bathroom gets the tub. These secondary bathrooms are usually tight on space, so many homeowners find that the convenience of combining the functions of a shower and bathtub is too hard to argue with. But saving space doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice style. Below, four designers share how they used tile, vanity style and other features to enhance a bathroom with a shower-tub combo.
Studio Blu
1. White Tile and Open Vanity
Designer: Adrienne Mascaro of Studio Blu
Location: Marina Del Rey, California
Size: 60 square feet (5.6 square meters); 6 by 10 feet
Homeowners’ request. “The client felt the bathroom was dated and dark,” says designer Adrienne Mascaro, whose client found her through Houzz. “The tub they had was small, and with glass doors it made the tub experience limited in pleasure. So I knocked down the wall between the toilet and the sink, which opened up the space. This also allowed the window above the toilet to be in the room.”
Shower-tub combo. “The client wanted the tub to stay, and this was especially important because the master bath has a shower and no room to add a tub,” Mascaro says. “It is always best to keep one tub in a home. We made a conscious decision not to add shower doors, because this would have closed off the tub. There’s a ceiling-track-mounted shower curtain instead.” White tiles help enhance sunlight.
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Studio Blu
Other special features. Shiplap walls. Black wicker pendants. Concrete vanity sink. Patterned porcelain floor tile.
Designer tip. “When you design with black and white, the eye is tricked by the high contrast, and [that] makes the space seem larger and brighter,” Mascaro says.
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Sarah Schmidt
2. Tile Stripes and Wood Vanity
Designer: Sarah Schmidt of Dwellingpoint Design
Location: Lahaina, Hawaii
Size: 50 square feet (4.6 square meters); 5 by 10 feet
Homeowners’ request. “This is a beach vacation house, so the owners wanted a fun bathroom for the kids and floor-to-ceiling [tiles] on all the walls for easy cleaning,” says designer Sarah Schmidt, who collaborated with her clients using Houzz ideabooks.
Shower-tub combo. “This is the only tub in the house, and the owners wanted it for small children to be able to use,” Schmidt says. “We incorporated the tub into the stripes on the walls, so that the white stripe completes at the top of the tub and the blue stripe starts.”
Other special features. Wood vanity (Toby vanity, available on Houzz). The shower niche, window surround and vanity countertop are white quartz. A blue wall-mounted vanity light coordinates with the blue tile. “The penny round tile in blue and white made for a nautical kids’ bathroom for a home on the beach,” Schmidt says. “We also mixed in an old brass mirror found at a junk shop to add some patina.”
Designer tip. “The shower niche fits completely in a white stripe, so that it doesn’t break up the stripes and your eye carries through,” Schmidt says.
“Uh-oh” moment. “This was a remodel and the tub wasn’t setting correctly on the subsurface, so that meant that the blue-stripe tile wasn’t able to be completely straight,” Schmidt says. “We had to remove the tub and reset the subsurface to make the stripe straight, but it was worth it to get everything to line up.”
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Miyuki Yamaguchi Design Studio
3. Creamy Tub and Floating Vanity
Designer: Miyuki Yamaguchi Design Studio
Location: Napa, California
Size: 66 square feet (6.1 square meters); 6 by 11 feet
Homeowners’ request. Update a 1980s bathroom to fit the overall modern-cottage style of the rest of the house, while keeping to a low budget. “The bathroom’s layout was straightforward to begin with, so no layout change was required,” designer Miyuki Yamaguchi says.
Shower-tub combo. “We decided to keep the cream-color tub even though a white color would have been better. But we valued the cast iron quality of it. So selecting materials to blend with the cream color of the tub was a bit of a challenge, but the contrasting cool gray [wood-look] floor tiles and the warm-tone light wood vanity cabinet pulled the colors together successfully.”
Other special features. “We wanted to carry out the modern-cottage feel of the house into this quick bathroom renovation work,” Yamaguchi says. “Each new element selection contributed to achieving just that. The wood vanity unit adds warmth, yet its floating type offers modernness. The rustic ‘wood’ floor is actually porcelain tiles for easy maintenance. The plain white 6-inch square tiles on the tub walls were installed in a running-bond manner with gray grout to accentuate the pattern. An outdoor-looking wall-mounted light fixture seals the cottage-living statement.”
Designer tip. “We feel that this project has proven there is no need to spend tons of money to achieve a very quick, satisfying renovation,” Yamaguchi says.
“Uh-oh” moment. “The only item I would have liked to have done differently is to change the tub to white or to change it to a shower stall,” Yamaguchi says. “But we hated the idea of eliminating something that still works well, especially a cast iron tub. Luckily we were able to make the cream-color tub work with the new finishes.”
Nina ji*zhar
4. Blue Tile and Double Floating Vanity
Designer: Nina ji*zhar
Location: Oakland, California
Size: 50 square feet (4.6 square meters)
Homeowners’ request. For this kids’ bathroom, the owners wanted something fun and family-friendly, with a splash of color. “Before, it had a separate shower across the room from the tub, with pedestal sink in between,” designer Nina ji*zhar says. “They never used the separate shower. So we decided to create a shower-tub combo and use the additional space for a double-sink vanity with lots of storage.”
Shower-tub combo. Being that this is a kids’ bathroom, “a tub comes in handy for bathing and soaking,” ji*zhar says. “Before, the tiles were pink and maroon, so we wanted something with cool hues in blues and grays to balance [the warm-tone wood] of the vanity. And a combination shower head and handheld is always nice to have for a kids’ bathroom, as well as an ample shower niche.”
Other special features. “We kept the paint white [Simply White by Benjamin Moore] to create a neutral backdrop for the beautiful tiles in blues,” ji*zhar says. “With the shade variation in each tile, they create this watercolor effect as well as [have a] handmade look. We kept the floor tile simple with a subtle pattern in a rhombus shape.”
Designer tip. “A wall-hung vanity makes a small bathroom appear larger, because you can see more flooring,” ji*zhar says.
“Uh-oh” moment. “We were hoping to miter the tiles for the shower niche,” ji*zhar says. “However, since these tiles don’t have straight edges, we decided to use a Schluter system to frame around the shower niche, and it actually turned out quite nicely.”
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