Do You Need a Bath in Your Bathroom?
It's one of the first big questions in almost every bathroom renovation, and one of the most agonised over.
Do you keep the bath, or rip it out and reclaim the space?
For some people it's an easy call. For most, it's a genuine tug-of-war between practicality, resale worries, family needs, and the nagging feeling that removing a bath is a decision you can't easily undo.
The short answer is this:
There's no universal right answer. The bath stays or goes based on how you actually live, how much space you have, and what you want the room to do for you.
So instead of guessing, here are the five questions we walk every client through to make the decision clearly and confidently.
1. Do You Have Young Kids?
This is the single biggest factor for most families, and it's the one that tends to override everything else.
If you have young children, a bath makes daily life genuinely easier. Bathing toddlers and babies in a shower is awkward, and most parents will tell you the bath is non-negotiable until the kids are old enough to shower on their own.
The key word, though, is young. If your kids are already at the age where they shower independently, or you don't have children at all, this factor drops away almost entirely. Plenty of people keep a bath "for the kids" long after the kids have stopped using it.
Be honest about where your family actually is, not where it was five years ago.
2. Do You Have the Space?
Bathrooms are usually the smallest rooms in the house, and a bath takes up a significant chunk of the available floor area.
The question worth asking is: what could that space do instead?
In a tight bathroom, removing the bath can free up enough room for:
A larger walk-in shower
A double vanity instead of a single
A dedicated storage cupboard or linen press
Simply more open floor, which makes a small room feel far bigger
If your bathroom is generous enough to fit both a good-sized shower and a bath comfortably, you may not need to choose at all. But in a compact space, keeping a bath you rarely use often means living with a cramped shower you use every single day. That's a poor trade-off.
3. Think About Resale Value
This is the worry that stops a lot of people from removing their bath. The conventional wisdom has always been that a home needs at least one bath to sell.
The reality is more nuanced. In Australia's high-demand property market, there's little hard evidence that removing a bath actually hurts sale prices, particularly in areas dominated by professionals, downsisers, or buyers without young children.
That said, this varies enormously by suburb and buyer demographic. A family-heavy outer suburb behaves very differently to an inner-city apartment market.
Our advice: don't rely on a blanket rule either way. Have a quick conversation with a local real estate agent who knows your specific area and buyer pool. Five minutes on the phone will tell you more than any general assumption, and it's worth doing before you commit.
4. Check Where the Trends Are Heading
Bathroom design has shifted noticeably over the past six years or so.
A growing number of homeowners have moved away from baths in favour of large, spacious showers paired with generous vanities. The big walk-in shower has become the centrepiece of the modern bathroom, where the bath used to be.
This matters for two reasons. First, it means going bathless is no longer the unusual choice it once was. Buyers and visitors are used to seeing it. Second, it means the products, fittings, and design ideas built around showers have come a long way, so a shower-focused bathroom can feel far more luxurious than it could a decade ago.
Trends shouldn't dictate your decision, but they're useful context. If you remove your bath, you're moving with the market, not against it.
5. Consider a Hybrid: The Shower-Over-Bath Combo
If you genuinely can't decide, there's a middle path that deserves more credit than it gets.
The shower-over-bath combo is making a comeback. It used to carry a slightly dated, rental-property reputation, but modern versions, with a sleek freestanding-style bath, a frameless screen, and a quality overhead shower, look fantastic and solve the dilemma entirely.
You get a bath for the kids, the occasional soak, and the resale box ticked. And you get a proper shower for everyday use. All in the footprint of a single fixture.
It's not the right fit for every bathroom, and it works best when the space and plumbing suit it. But for anyone torn between the two options, it genuinely offers the best of both worlds. Personally, it's a setup we rate highly.
What to do…
Here's how we'd summarise the decision:
Keep the bath if you have young kids, plenty of space, or you're in a family-focused area where buyers expect one
Remove the bath if your kids have outgrown it, your space is tight, and a bigger shower or double vanity would genuinely improve how you use the room every day
Go hybrid with a shower-over-bath combo if you want the practicality of a bath and the function of a shower without sacrificing the floor space for both
Always check locally on resale, because your specific suburb and buyer pool matter far more than any national rule of thumb
There's no wrong answer here, only the answer that fits how you live. The mistake is keeping a bath out of fear or habit when the space would serve you far better doing something else.
Make the Call Before the Demolition Starts
Whether the bath stays or goes shapes almost every other decision in the renovation, from where the drainage runs to how the whole room is laid out. It's exactly the kind of decision that needs to be made early, with a clear head, before any trades arrive on site.
The real secret to a bathroom you'll love isn't in the fixtures or the finishes. It's in working out what you actually need from the space, and planning the whole room around that.
If you’re planning your bathroom renovation and want to understand where these design details fit into the bigger picture, our Bathroom Renovation Course walks you through every step from planning and design to construction and fit-off. It’s the ultimate guide to creating a functional, well-thought-out bathroom that looks great and works beautifully.
👉 Check out the course here: Manage Your Own Bathroom Renovation Course
The real secret to renovating a bathroom is not in the demolition, tiling, or styling. It is in the planning and preparation that happens first. If you want a renovation that is on time, on budget, and stress-free, put your energy into the pre-construction stage.
Get your planning right, and the build itself becomes the easiest part.
If you need help working through these decisions, our Bathroom Layout and Design Service can guide you through the options and help you create the perfect family-friendly space.
