Converting a Tub Into a Walk-in Shower: Before and After Ideas

The hall bathtub in a lot of houses gets used about as often as the good china. It collects dust and the occasional rinsed paintbrush while everyone showers standing up, stepping over its wall every morning. Converting that tub into a walk-in shower is one of the most common bathroom projects there is, and a custom tiled version runs roughly $3,500 to $15,000, depending on size, materials, and how much plumbing has to move.

One piece of advice: keep at least one tub somewhere in the house. A National Association of Home Builders survey found 74% of buyers want both a tub and a shower in the primary bathroom, and a conversion tends to hold its value best when there's still a tub elsewhere.

Ready to get started? The before-and-after imagery below can show what is possible and spur your own ideas.

A window above the tub is worth keeping

Beige tile, a sliding-glass tub combo, and one small frosted window for light. The English row house bathroom started with all the personality of a rental, and the after goes the opposite direction with dark green glazed tile, brass fixtures, and a curbed walk-in shower. The window stayed put. It sits in the new shower wall in its original spot, framed by that deep green tile with a plant trailing over the sill.

Moving a window means new framing, patched exterior siding, and sometimes another round with the permit office. Leaving it where it is keeps that money free for tile and fixtures.

A window inside a shower does ask for a little care. Waterproof the trim, and pitch the sill slightly toward the room so water sheds instead of pooling. Handled that way, natural light in a shower is a small daily luxury most bathrooms never get. Keeping the window is what makes it possible.

One continuous floor makes a small bathroom feel bigger

Two competing tile patterns can make a small bathroom feel even smaller. The Mediterranean bungalow had exactly that problem: hexagonal tile on the main floor, a different square tile in the tub surround, the room visually chopped into pieces. The after lays one terracotta tile across the whole space, shower floor included, with the low curb tiled to match so the threshold nearly disappears.

Run one material across the whole floor and there's no line where it stops. The room feels bigger than it measures, and the change costs nothing extra, since you were going to tile the floor anyway. Running that same tile wall to wall, and into the shower, is just a layout call. Make it before the tile order goes in.

Clear glass makes a small bathroom feel larger

The frosted sliding doors were the real problem in the coastal midcentury ranch. That bumpy obscured panel walled off close to a third of a small room before you even stepped inside. The after keeps the blue tile and the original footprint but swaps the doors for a clear glass enclosure, so you see straight through to the tiled wall behind it. What used to feel like a closed-off corner now belongs to the room.

Clear glass moves light around too. The blue tile and the window stay in view from the doorway, where the old cloudy panel had blocked them. Frameless and semi-frameless glass costs more than a basic framed slider, and a glass shower door runs roughly $550 to $1,400 installed. In a small bathroom, it's worth the difference.

Match the shower enclosure to how you actually shower

How much should a shower close in? The jewel-toned Victorian makes its answer obvious. Emerald zellige tile, pink walls, a deep burgundy vanity: it's the boldest before-and-after in this set, and the most instructive one for that single decision.

This enclosure is fully glassed on its open sides, with a door that shuts. That's deliberate. An open walk-in feels airy, but it lets heat and steam drift off and sends overspray toward the rest of the room. In an old house that runs cold, or for anyone who likes a long hot shower, a closed enclosure holds the warmth where you want it.

The curb works on the same logic. This one is a low lip in black marble. A curb contains water simply and reliably, and costs far less than a curbless build.

A fully glassed enclosure does ask for upkeep in return. Three glass sides show every water spot, and a door that holds the steam in needs a way to let it back out, so plan for a strong exhaust fan and keep a squeegee handy. That's a fair trade for a warm, contained shower. Open or enclosed, curbed or curbless, choose based on how the shower gets used every day, not on how it looks in a single photo.

Decide on the curb before anything gets built

When looking at this before-after inspiration, the first thing to notice is that the acrylic tub insert is gone. In came cedar-look paneling, stone, and a curbless shower flush with the floor, quiet and Japanese-influenced. No lip, no threshold, nothing to step over today or twenty years from now, making it particularly ADA-friendly.

A curbless shower is also a structural decision, which is why it has to be made early. The shower floor sits lower than the surrounding floor to create slope, so the subfloor gets recessed or the rest of the bathroom floor gets built up. The slope needs to reach about a quarter inch per foot toward the drain, and the waterproofing membrane has to extend past the shower onto the bathroom floor, since there's no curb acting as a backup.

Going curbless tends to add somewhere between $800 and $2,500 over a curbed shower, plus time on the schedule. For the right household, that premium is money well spent. It only turns into a problem when the decision gets made late, with the framing already up.

Without a curb, water also travels farther, so two features earn their keep: a glass panel long enough to block splash, and a drain set at the shower's edge, often a linear one, to catch water before it strays. Get those right and the payoff is real, since a curbless shower is the only kind a wheelchair can roll straight into. If you want most of that open feel without the subfloor work, a low-threshold shower splits the difference.

In a small bathroom, texture does what square footage can't

A fan-scallop mosaic floor is the first thing you notice walking into the Art Deco apartment bathroom now. That's the point. The room had no extra inches to give, so the design went all in on texture and pattern.

The shower wall is reeded tile, and fluted glass repeats the same vertical ribbing. The ridges catch light along their edges and trap shadow in between, so a plain wall has something to look at. None of that costs floor space. The mosaic floor and green marble trim make the shower the most striking thing in the room.

What a tub-to-walk-in-shower conversion costs

A few numbers to plan around as you scope your own walk-in shower remodel:

• A custom tiled tub-to-walk-in-shower conversion usually runs $3,500 to $15,000. Prefab stall kits land lower, while custom tile and frameless glass push higher.
• Most conversions take three to seven days. Curbless showers and intricate tilework can run past a week.
• Permits for work that touches plumbing typically cost $250 to $500.
• A glass shower door installs for about $550 to $1,400, depending on framed versus frameless.
• Labor accounts for 40% to 60% of the total, so anything that keeps the plumbing in place keeps the budget in check.
• Set aside 10% to 20% as a contingency. Old tub alcoves are a common place to find hidden water damage or dated pipe.

The right version for your bathroom depends on your footprint, your budget, and who uses the room. Block's Renovation Studio lets you try materials and layouts on your own space and watch the cost estimate update with each choice, so the big decisions get made before a contractor picks up a tool. When the plan feels solid, Block matches you with vetted local contractors who compete for the project against a scope its experts have already reviewed.

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