The Global Pandemic brought with it unheralded changes like massive shutdowns, social distancing practices, and a push to stay indoors. And because of this, many of us are relegated to work, attend school, and just, generally speaking, spend more time in our homes on the whole.
A recent Harvard study estimates an over 8.5% increase in spending within the home renovation and maintenance markets which they predict will extend well past the first half of 2022.
Renovation of your bathroom is considered a capital improvement, meaning it adds to the overall value of your home for resale or just in general. The shower and tub are two of the most used utilities in that room and therefore even if you only perform a partial renovation (only updating the shower and/or tub) you will be adding value to your home.
These days there are several options when it comes to bathroom remodeling ideas. In fact, a bathroom remodel can encompass many things including shower conversion, flooring, and fixture updates, and other bath remodel ideas can either be considered a partial or a full renovation, depending on your budget.
There are several partial bathroom renovations, or updates, that are still considered to be capital improvements, raising the overall value of your home. As you are about to see remodeling your shower or tub, usually a bathtub to shower conversion is one of the best examples of a partial renovation that can mean a huge ROI.
Below are several reasons why you may want to consider updating your existing bathroom with either a partial or full remodel in 2022.
You Need More Space
With the pandemic pushing all of us indoors, our homes have become our offices, boardrooms, and classrooms among other things.
We are all spending more time in our homes and thus spending more time in our bathrooms. A bathroom remodel, even a partial, can certainly help address a lack of space and storage. Any shower remodel or bath remodel, especially a shower conversion can help address this by decreasing the overall spatial footprint of a bathtub, as well as offering new and extensive storage and shelving potential. These types of bathroom renovation ideas can also be safer as we will explore below.
You Want To Update The Outdated
Many bathrooms are outdated with old and possibly leaking or damaged or worn fixtures, cracks in the grout, and caulk potentially leading to staining along with bacteria and mold. The average homeowner most likely has at one time or another contemplated what updating the bathroom could look like.
If you are spending more and more time in your home, or you’ve increased the number of occupants, or even if you feel your bathroom is simply outdated and unsightly or lacking style or charm, a bathroom update may be just what you need.
The technology surrounding a tub to shower conversion has only grown more sophisticated for instance. Currently, the vast number of options made available allows homeowners to showcase their shower conversion as a decorative centerpiece of sorts. This can really raise the style bar in your bathroom while adding to the overall aesthetics of your home. And, if you are preparing to sell a bath to shower conversion will also be attractive to potential buyers. So, again, this translates as added value whether you are the homeowner or even the prospective buyer.
You Want To Save Money While Adding Value
With the Pandemic moving us all indoors, our homes are getting more use than ever before. This means essentially that we are using more of everything in our homes; more water, more electricity, more foot traffic, etc. Basically more wear and tear all around, no matter how you size it up.
However, some rooms get more use than others. The bathroom is one of those rooms. Fortunately, as stated before, it is also one of the most lucrative to update in terms of ROI and potential market sale price.
The addition of low flow utilities, like low-pressure shower heads, and new cost-saving fixtures and plumbing can greatly reduce the cost of your bills as well as be more environmentally friendly and eco-conscious.
Even the materials used in today’s most shower to bathtub conversion, for instance, are far more sanitary and environmentally friendly than those used in the past. This makes them easier to clean and requires less maintenance since they are generally inhospitable to mold and bacteria.
You Need It To Be Safer
The current stats on bathroom-related injuries is somewhat alarming.
The CDC has estimated that between teens and adults, over 230,000 injuries from slips or falls occur every year in bathrooms. These slips and falls cause injuries that often require a lifetime of treatment.
If that weren’t enough to convince you there is more that may.
With the ever-increasing rate of scientific breakthroughs, advancements in the fields of Pharmacology and Medicine, and a trend toward preventive health, people are living longer.
And even though the elderly are living longer, many are also living alone. Moreover, from a safety perspective, many of them are currently occupying homes that have outdated and, most likely, unsafe bathrooms. If you are elderly or if you have any elderly loved ones living with you, it may be an incentive to make your bathroom safer.
For one thing, you could consider that roughly 33% of the elderly required a hospital visit after suffering a shower or bathroom-related injury. That’s quite a high number when you consider that over 79% of bathroom-related injuries occur to individuals 65 and over. It is estimated that about 1 person in the U.S. dies every day from a bathroom-related injury.
All of this means that your bathroom can potentially be quite a dangerous place if designed poorly or without any updated safety measures in place.
Modern options like handrails, grip surfaces among other things do a lot to help protect us in the event of a Bathroom mishap. But maybe the most effective renovation or update to modernize your bathroom is a bath to shower conversion. This can significantly reduce the risk of falls in the bathroom as it completely removes the need to traverse the barrier of a tub. This is clearly a much safer option for the elderly, many of whom have limited mobility, or other issues that could turn a bathroom into a scary place of sorts.
To Sum Up
So, no matter how you slice it, updating your bathroom, even partially, can return a healthy ROI as well as raise the overall value of your home since technically, any bath remodel is considered a capital improvement, meaning it adds to the overall value of your home whether you’re in the market to sell or not.
The shower and tub are two of the most used utilities in one of the most valued rooms in your home, and therefore, even if you only perform a partial renovation (only updating shower and/or tub with a bath to shower conversion you will be adding value to your home.
In many ways a shower and bath remodel is maybe the smartest update for many of the reasons listed above. If your bathroom is outdated, unsafe, in need of repair, or you are simply looking for an aesthetic change or contemplating putting your home on the market, a bathtub into shower conversion may be your smartest option that will give you the most bang for your buck since it’s a relatively economical investment that will almost guarantee increased usage, a healthy ROI, and a potentially higher resale value.
If you are looking for trusted, local, and competitively priced bathroom contractors near you, Contact Thompson Creek today and speak with one of our bath to shower conversion specialists!