I love to sit and soak in my tub when it’s cold in the winter and on weekends when I have a little more time. And like most women, I love to put bubbles in the bath, light some candles and relax with a glass of wine and good music when no one is home. But on hot days I prefer a cool shower, and when I awaken all groggy and sluggish but have to leave quickly for work, a shower wakes me up but gets me moving.

I also love to shower with my husband because he scrubs my back. The problem with showering with a partner is that few home showers are big enough. Someone ends up shivering in the corner while the other hogs the water, or if it’s a shower over a bathtub, I usually end up being the one who slips.

Walk In Shower For Two

So, when my husband and I began planning our house renovation here in Spain we unanimously agreed on two things. 1. We must have a bathtub AND a shower. 2. The shower must be one of the walk in showers designed for two.

Because we were creating two areas, one for bathing and one for showering, we needed to keep the costs down. We wanted cheap walk in showers without them looking cheap. We wanted natural materials and a little glass, but most importantly good drainage because the shower was to be in the basement and we didn’t want water to collect and create mold.

Here are some things we discovered.

Plan the area well by going to the space you have selected for the walk in shower. You and partner should move around in the area to be sure you have selected a big enough space. Remember that a corner can be ideal and still save space.

Once you know the space is adequate in size, consult a plumber to be sure the drainage is near enough and will flow out well. The most annoying thing about showers is that the water doesn’t go down fast enough and you end up standing in ankle deep water that spills beyond the tray or shower area and takes a long time to dry. There are several ways to avoid this.

1. A walk in shower wet room. For those of you not familiar with a wet room, it is a an entire room that doesn’t matter if it’s wet all over because there are several drains in the floor, not just immediately under the shower, but in strategic places like corners or low areas where water may otherwise accumulate. The entire room is tiled or has stone or wood from top to bottom that is appropriately treated and water-resistant so it doesn’t matter if water splashes everywhere. It’s great for two or more because there are many nozzles or showerheads or hoses with sprayers so no one need stand shivering in a corner. Wet rooms are great for families with children or fun for couples.

2. A tray is a molded plastic (or similar material) unit that is installed on the floor under the shower. Since they are quite deep and beveled toward the centre, they catch the water and it flows down the drain, usually without overflowing. The small inexpensive trays are often not adequate for the amount of water and may overflow. They also may crack or break which may cause other flooring and plumbing problems later. Use a large enough tray, select a strong material and don’t jump in the shower.

3. A walk in shower enclosure is a type of shower that is spacious yet doesn’t permit water outside the enclosed area. The newest models that are prefabricated come sealed and are watertight. They are modular units that have a floor, back and usually transparent doors of glass or plexi and also have the showerheads and taps and all controls preinstalled. There are small models for one or styles that are spacious enough for two or more.

4. A tray and a built up second level is a third option that helps with drainage problems that sometimes occur with just a tray alone. This technique involves building up a walk in shower onto a platform so that below the platform there is room for a tray and the normal drainage system. Where you stand can be made of anything, usually it is treated wood, stone or tile. Its advantages are that you needn’t create a entire wet room out of stone or tile, just the area that is elevated, but the water ends up lower and so it doesn’t overfill and spill out as easily.

My husband I decided on a walk in shower wet room with stone tile from top to bottom and two shower heads. We also included a wooden bench and an area with small pebbles to massage our feet. Our walk in shower was left without an enclosure except for a large sheet of glass known as bespoke shower doors that actually was hung at the entrance to the entire wet room. I keep towels in baskets just outside the door beside a small sofa that’s great for relaxing on after showers.

It doesn’t matter if you choose a walk in shower cubical or a walk in shower enclosure or a stall; just remember to design your walk in shower big enough for TWO.

1. Showers without doors must have good engineering in two main aspects, the placement of the shower head(s) and the drainage. A flat floor that does not funnel the water to a central drain below the shower area will end up causing a flood every time someone showers. Likewise, if the showerhead is placed directly across from furniture, fixtures or items that should not get sopping wet, such walk in showers will not be successful. The pluming and placement of fixtures and drainage are essential to a bathroom shower that will not have doors.
2. Walk in showers without doors are considered wet rooms in general and therefore the walls and floor must be covered with tile, stone, teak wood or some waterproof paint or sealant and protector that will keep the moisture from penetrating the walls and floor. It goes without staying that such wet rooms will not be carpeted. Tile is the best, stone is good too, wood is great but must be treated or be teak or all weather that is specific for spas and wet rooms.
3. Bathrooms with door-less showers usually have two other elements that typical showers don’t have. One is that they are usually larger spaces that are open, and two, they are often designed in a minimalist or rustic spa style because the usual cabinets or towel racks or personal effects are best isolated from the wet room area. So consider if you have enough space to pull off practical and comfortable walk in showers designs in the area you have.
4. Since showers of this type need careful planning and plumbing and sometimes engineering, they are usually more expensive. The absence of a door may save you money on one piece of glass but the overall design will have to be custom built by someone who understands good drainage and wet room engineering. So count the cost of walk in showers with doors that may be prefabricated and affordable to the cost of a bespoke shower design.

5. If you want the best possible functionality for the elderly and children, you can choose a shower without a door for ease of access, but don’t make the mistake of creating an elevated floor or adding a floor tray under the shower in order to save design and engineering and plumbing costs. If you’re going to use a tray, the idea of an open wet room with no doors is spoilt!

Decorating in Simple ways

If you have chosen stone or tie or wood, perhaps with glass accents or doors, then you can keep the theme going with ceramic or clay pots, a small wooden bench, or a chrome seat that goes with a chrome and glass style.

Towels and Personal Effects

One of the problems of wet room enclosure designs is that often there is nowhere for towel storage or personal effects. One way to solve this problem and add a design feature is to build in shelving into the wall behind the shower. These will be tiled spaces that allow for shampoo and soap and other things without the need for plastic trays or wall units. They will look like a seamless part of the wall, be they stone or wood or tile. For towels, do something similar in an area where there will be less water, build-in the shelves into the wall or under the sink or in a corner. Leave them open for easy access, but don’t bring in outside furniture. Keep the space sleek.

A wet room enclousure that is totally open, by that I mean, it has no shower curtain or glass doors, will be a delight if decorated with natural items, bamboo, clay pots, ceramic vases, tin or wrought iron, or brass or copper. Personal effects and towels can be stored in unusual containers, even wooden boxes and baskets just as easily as in cabinets. You can also go with an all glass theme, using square blocks to create an open cabinet where you can store items but without adding heavy furniture.

An Alternative

The other alternative to decorating walk in shower areas that get very wet and are fun minimalist places that have a spa feeling, is to not store towels or personal items in the wet room enclosure but to have a linen closet outside the door where towels and other items are kept safe and dry. This will allow you to decorate the wet space with nothing more than the glass and chrome, or wood and stone, or tile and ceramic that is needed.

Keep it simple.

Do not use highly decorative tiles. Use handmade tiles amongst other ones to give a flavor of style, but don’t overindulge in patterns and motifs. Think Japanese, think Zen, think sleek and clean and crisp and you will have a beautiful practical wet room that the whole family can enjoy.

So what I’ll do instead is give you some of the top brand names that people recommend and then you can check them out in the stores. I’ll provide practical information that you can incorporate in designing your walk in shower enclosure or stall that will make sense for YOU.

Walk in Shower Prices

Below are some walk in bath and shower brand names that are hot right now. Most of them carry bathroom walk in showers or baths and also have innovative showerheads and bathroom accessories. I do not include exact prices (just ballpark figures) because walk in showers can run you as little as $100 for a shower door to over $2,000 for a digital (all inclusive) walkin shower enclosure.

Matki Walk In Shower

In general you can get something practical for walk in shower cubicles or a walk in shower enclosure between $300 and $700 if you shop around. You can also opt to build the walk in shower area out of any building material that has been treated so as to be water-resistant and then just add taps, showerhead and the floor drainage system. These items again can cost anywhere from $50 to several hundred.

Hot Brands for Walk in Showers

• Airbath is mostly for baths.
• Bette has a line of floor trays suitable for walk in showers.
• Bisque is great for angle shower trays.
• Bristan has everything.
• Duravit has a very impressive multi-functional shower and all the accessories.
• Daryl is part of the very famous Kohler and has high quality shower and bath products that are durable.
• Grohe is well known for luxury showers and baths and for their line of water saving showerheads and taps/faucets.
• Hansgrohe has wash basins, baths, showers and all accessories in very modern and sleek chrome.
• Matki is high-tech, sleek and lots of glass for walk in showers and complete wet rooms.
• Mira is another line of dependable Kohler mostly offering accessories and modern electric showers.
• Roca has everything from porcelain toilets to sleek chrome shower heads.
• Vado Eurobath is good for shower heads and chrome wall mounted shower mixers.
• Aqualux, Twyford and Coram specialize in walk in showers, shower enclosure systems, and hinged pivot door shower enclosure. They also have some models for sliding doors shower enclosure, quadrant shower Enclosures and bifold doors for walk in showers.

Walkin Shower Shapes

Some of the newer walk in showers have D-Shape shower enclosures and others are corner entry and practical for small spaces enabling you to satisfy all possible master bathroom ideas.

Depending on the shape of your bathroom you may have room for a self contained shower enclosures, which as the name states, in all inclusive – doors, back, floor, tray, drain, showerheads, taps and usually they are digital.

Shower Trays

If you are building your own unique style walk in shower or wet room out of whatever construction material goes with your décor, you can opt to buy just the floor trays that come in rectangle, square and corner models to suit your space. A tray can be useful if you want hassle free care and good drainage or if you are not going to put down tile or stone or wood. However I have seen a tray used as a base and later a platform of wood or other material is built on top of the tray. This requires a top level drain that then runs down into the tray and drains as usual. This can be an inexpensive solution because trays can be as little as $50.

Shower Temperature Control

Electric showers can be added and still your walk in shower is relatively inexpensive. Consider the practical shower mixers that can be mounted on the wall and regulate the temperature better than traditional taps. They are a little more expensive (around $60 or $70 for good models) but they make your walk in shower a much better place in terms of temperature control.

Shower Doors

You can add sliding shower doors or bifold shower doors to almost any concept for less than $200 and hinged shower doors for little more $100. The most expensive walk in showers have bespoke shower doors and they cost more because usually they are made to measure.

…I step from the bamboo flooring inside the bamboo enclosure and let the cool water spray over my skin. No bath or shower ever felt so good. I can smell the wood as the water sprinkles the walls, and an earthy freshness rises from the stone floor in a little cloud of vapor. I let myself drip dry for a moment, tie a sarong around my waist and plop into my hammock. Aaaahhhh, yes! This is what I think of whenever anyone mentions a “walk in shower”.

Walk in Showers Around the World

As a journalist I’ve had a few walk in showers over the years: in Indonesia with teak walls and marble floors, in Spain with mosaic tile and Moorish arches, in China with silken partitions and a foot massaging pebbled floor, and in Japan within a glass enclosure and digital shower controls. However my strangest shower experience was in a Taipei apartment where the landlord proudly presented me to the Taiwanese version of a walk in shower. Yes indeed, the tiny bathroom was a wet room. By positioning myself just right on the toilet, and balancing my elbow on the edge of the bathroom sink, I could in fact hold the hose that came out of the wall above the toilet tank and take a pleasant hot shower.

Why all the fuss about showers?

It’s simple. A shower isn’t merely a place to wash dirt off our bodies; it purifies and refreshes us within. It’s a private moment of renewal, a way to let things go, to watch the dirt of the day flow away with the water and disappear down the drain.

Practical and Inexpensive Walkin Shower Splish-Spalsh

You needn’t go to Bali for a marble-teak splish or to Tokyo to take a high-tech splash, and you needn’t live in the jungle to smell bamboo and stone as you scrub. You can have a walk in shower as Caribbean-tropical or as Asian-chic as you desire right in your own home. Don’t settle for squatting over a toilet or standing inside a tub when you can dance to your own beat in a walk in shower that’s both practical and inexpensive.

You can buy a walk in shower cubical or a modern walk in shower enclosure made of glass or you can build walk in shower stalls from wood, stone, mosaic tile or marble. The secret to a walkin shower is how well the area is sealed and how well the drainage in the floor has been designed. To show you how simple and inexpensive it can be here’s an example: One innovative gentleman who ran a small 2 room B&B on an island in the South China Sea, simply left the cement shower area open, painted the back walls with a water-resistant bright color and filled the floor (up to the outer cement lip) with about 4 inches of medium sized loose gravel (not sand)and seashells. The water ran between the gravel and shells, draining as normal.

The Chinese owner said he had been inspired to create this shower by one he had seen when he lived on Australia’s Gold Coast. He said it cost him the price of the cement to make the area, the price of the taps and shower head, and the cost of the water-resistant paint; the pebbles and shells he gathered from the beach.

Handicap Showers

Walk in baths and showers are not just for the artistic or modern shower-goers who want something exotic. They are also practical solutions to facilitate access to disabled showers and handicapped showers in walk in bathrooms. A walk in bathroom, deigned extra wide and with no steps, can be combined with manual or electric showers. Elderly people or anyone needing level access showers, without a cubical enclosure, should consider a wet room made entirely of stone, tile or wood. A walk in bathroom/ wet room is not just for spas or hotels; they are practical for residential use and may resolve issues for designers who must create a bathroom for a handicapped individual.

Here at Home Walk In showers I will help you with tips and ideas for YOUR walk in showers so you can spend your time splish-splashing!

So what’s the difference between “walk in showers” and “showers”?

Tywford Walk In Shower

Showers often have a step or a lip or are part of a bathtub/shower combination that makes you step up into or onto a shower on a platform or down into a tub. Walk in showers, in the true sense of the word, are level access showers and do not require you to step into or onto them. They also are meant to be more spacious and often totally open like a wet room.

However, the definition I have just given isn’t true when it comes to some of the newer models of so called walk in showers that are actually cubicles, enclosures or stalls and not totally open. This is a mere technicality because most of these modular unit shower stalls and enclosures are made almost entirely of transparent plexi or glass, or have huge glass doors, that makes them appear to be open and therefore “walk in”.

Walk in Showers with TV

Bathroom walk in showers don’t even need to be in the bathroom if they’re of the new high-tech kind that come completely enclosed. A walk in shower enclosure these days looks a little like a huge capsule you might imagine using for time travel. They are not level access showers because in most cases you must step into them and close the door which seals snuggly behind you. And inside is a whole new world of shower power!

I have seen one model made by a Chinese manufacturer that not only offered a complete digital console to control everything (including perhaps opening the garage door) but also had a TV inside the Walk In Shower Enclosure. Some are not so high-tech as to have a monitor, but most offer a variety of showerhead options and multiple nozzles and hoses to reach every inch of your body.

Shower Enclosures not ideal for the handicapped

Enclosed showers are not ideal handicap showers. They are not designed as disabled showers because the entrance is usually elevated. If you need a level access shower consider walk in shower stalls that also come with digital controlled consoles and multiple shower heads but do not require stepping into because the tray or floor should be flush with the ground and the only thing that separates them from the room is a glass door. These come with sliding shower doors or hinged doors and still offer an encapsulated feeling without the difficult access.

Easy Walk in Shower Solutions

If you’ve been thinking about a bathroom rehab by adding a walk in shower, there has never been a better to do it than now. The prices are good, the technology is peaking and the selection is almost limitless. Modernizing your shower into a walk in shower needn’t be a big undertaking. Here’s why.

Matki Walk In Shower

There are walk in shower cubicles that have all you need, like wall panels, doors, modular floor trays and most of them are packaged into one low price. All you need to do is call a plumber and install. In a couple hours you can be taking a shower in your sleek new space.

There is also a walk in shower enclosure that is all inclusive, in many cases with a modular console and digital control. All you need to do is pick a space, make sure there’s a drain and plug it in. Well, not exactly “plug in”, but close.

No more Slippery Showers over the Tub

Alternatives to the slippery “shower over a tub” are walk in shower stalls personalized to whatever what you want with tile, arches, stone, wood or parts of prefabricated showers instead of the whole unit.

• use a floor tray for drainage but keep the walls natural stone
• install a teak floor but use white wall back and side panels
• install only the large sheets of glass for doors and leave the shower space otherwise open

Quick Design Tips for Modernizing Walk in Showers

• Try black slate tile as a backdrop for walk in showers wet room. It’s elegant, especially if you’re going to add glass panel doors and sleek chrome taps.
• Add multiple shower heads or a combination of nozzles hoses and waterfalls just like in the fancy hotels. There are many residential options available and for a lot less then you might think.
• For a crisp modern look you can tile in neutral stone and add a dash of accent color in a minimalist way – such as a little Spanish olive green or a touch of China red with a single porcelain pot outside the shower door.

• A teak seat inside the shower can give that five star feeling without the price.

• New shower heads or an electric shower could be all you need to modernize walk in showers.
• Buy a stylish bathroom counter top, floor tiles and new fixtures and fittings to finish off the look.