Tub or shower: which is right for your bathroom?
The decision framework we walk homeowners through before any conversion.
By the Portland Tile crew · Last updated July 16, 2026
Short answer
Choose based on how you live, with one resale guardrail: keep at least one tub somewhere in the house if you can. If a tub gets used a few times a year and you shower daily, a walk in shower conversion almost always serves you better. Households with young children, dedicated bath takers, or only one bathroom should think harder before removing the only tub.
Where a project lands in these ranges depends mostly on the finish materials you choose: tile, cabinetry, countertops, and plumbing fixtures.
Figures are nonbinding planning estimates, not a quote, bid, or offer. Actual pricing is established only by a written estimate.
Count how often you use the tub
When did someone last take a bath in the tub you're debating? For most primary bathrooms we remodel, the answer is measured in years. A tub you don't use is the most expensive storage shelf in the house: it eats a five foot run of wall, forces a daily step over, and gives nothing back.
Meanwhile the shower you use twice a day is squeezed into whatever space the tub left over. Flipping that allocation, a generous walk in shower where the tub sat, is the single most life improving change in most primary baths.
Resale value: keep one tub in the house
Buyers with small children, and the agents advising them, look for at least one bathtub somewhere in the home. If your house has a hall bath with a tub, converting the primary to a walk in shower is no obstacle to resale and often a selling point; a spacious tiled shower reads as an upgrade at every price point.
If it's the only tub, weigh your timeline. Staying ten years? Build the bathroom for your life, not a hypothetical buyer's. Selling within a few years in a family neighborhood? Keep a tub or accept that some buyers will mentally deduct the cost of adding one back.
Aging in place considerations
The side of a standard tub is a fifteen inch climb that gets less funny every year. A walk in or curbless shower with a bench, a handheld sprayer, and blocking for grab bars is the difference between staying in your home comfortably and remodeling under pressure later. If this is your long term house, the conversion is partly an insurance policy.
Freestanding tub plus shower
Larger primary bathrooms can skip the tradeoff entirely: a walk in shower for daily life and a freestanding soaking tub as the centerpiece. It needs floor space, roughly a room of eighty square feet or more to feel uncramped, and it's the signature move of the luxury remodels we build in Lake Oswego and Camas. Where the room allows it, nothing photographs better.
What a conversion involves
A tub to shower conversion removes the tub, rebuilds the wet area on a bonded waterproofing membrane, moves the drain from a tub drain to a properly sloped shower drain, and finishes in tile with a niche, new fixtures, and glass. Typical Portland area cost runs $12,000 to $18,000 or more, with about two weeks of active work.
Related questions
Does removing a tub lower home value?
Not when at least one tub remains in the house; a quality walk in shower in the primary bath typically helps value. Removing the only tub can narrow your buyer pool in family oriented neighborhoods. The finish quality matters as much as the fixture choice: a dated tub loses to a beautiful tiled shower with most buyers.
Are soaker tubs worth it?
For people who bathe, absolutely; for everyone else they become sculpture. A freestanding soaker earns its space when it gets weekly use or anchors a large primary suite visually. If you're installing one for resale alone, a bigger, better shower usually returns more per square foot.
Can a shower go exactly where the tub was?
Usually, yes. A standard alcove tub occupies a 30-by-60-inch footprint, which converts into a generous walk in shower with no wall moves. The drain relocates within the same plumbing zone, which keeps cost down. Curbless entry is often possible in the same footprint, depending on your floor framing.
What about tub and shower combos with glass doors?
They solve nothing well: you keep the climb over, gain glass to squeegee, and still bathe in a cramped alcove tub. If the room can only hold one fixture, pick the one that matches your actual routine rather than combining two compromised versions.
Keep reading: Tub to shower conversions · Walk in & curbless showers · Bathroom remodel cost guide
All details matter.
A bathroom or kitchen remodel is hundreds of small decisions. Which tile, where the layout gives and where it holds, what gets fixed once the wall is open. We work through them with you instead of guessing, and you hear from us at every step, not just when something goes wrong. That is what you are actually hiring: skilled trades who sweat the details and answer the phone. Tell us about your space and we will put a real number on it.