Removing a Garden Tub (Bathroom Re-Do)

A recent project we’ve done that has been several months in the planning stages is one at my mom’s house. When she moved into her house last summer, there were two things she had wanted to change: adding a screened-in porch, and taking out the garden tub and putting in a walk-in shower (and turning the small stand-up shower into some kind of closet).

The garden tub was a standard 60″ size, so it was a pretty easy swap to do a 60″ shower. My mom didn’t want anything too fancy like tile; she wanted the fiberglass inserts. The walk-in shower required a few things: the 60″ base, the back wall, the two side walls, a shower door, a drain, and the shower faucet/shower head combination. All of this cost about $1,200 in total.

We had plumbers come in and cut out the garden tub, as well as the stand-up shower. They made nice cuts along the drywall so they didn’t just rip it out and make a huge mess. They crushed the concrete around the drain in order to move it. The tub drain had been in the center, but close to the wall. The shower base’s drain was smack dab in the center of the base, so the drain had to be piped several inches over.

The drywall had to be removed all the way up to the height of the shower, because the 60″ measurement where the tub had been installed was from framing to framing… the dry wall took up 1/2″ of the 60 inches on each wall. For the sides to match up with the edges of the base, the drywall had to be removed.

Once the drain was re-routed, the base, backwall and sides were installed! The shower door was added, along with safety handles. Since the drywall was cut so neatly, we decided to just add trim around the shower to cover the cuts… that way we didn’t have to bother with sheetrock dust. We also went ahead and put in new flooring while we were at it. It makes such a big difference!

Here is the finished shower!