We are building a barn-home and would like to incorporate an old clawfoot tub into one of the bathrooms. It would only be used for showers, and we wanted to avoid the use of shower curtains (they seem unsightly, confining and hard to keep clean). Anybody have unique ideas for how to use tile and/or glass enclosures with a clawfoot tub to contain shower water?
Shawn
Replies
The only thing that comes to mind is to build it in like a roman tub tile the walls.
Wallyo
Hopefully you are speaking about a timberframed home when you say barn home and not just a stickframed home with a gambrel roof.
They make several shower curtains especially for claw foot tubs.. contact people like renovators supply http://www.rensup.com for pictures of them..
Any permanent surround will restrict your cleaning of underneath the tub and eventually leave a unsightly mess underneath the tub..
you could also make a seperate shower enclosure and use the telephone shower head whicjh also would be period correct..
Yes, it is the real deal- we deconstructed an old vertical-timber barn on our property and I am built the new barn-home using the old timbers. The arched roof was made from trusses, but the interior side will have old bent wood strips showing.
We considered the idea of building a shower, then placing the clawfoot tub inside, but that would be more work, use more material, and take up more space. Since this is a smallish bathroom and we are trying to conserve material, I was hoping for a better way to use the clawfoot.
We have a clawfoot in our current farmhouse and I built a suspended curtain rod from pipes and fittings. It works fine and looks good from the outside, but the inner curtain gets stained from our well water and is a bear to keep clean. Plus, I don't like using vinyl in the first place, so I vowed to get away from the curtain in the next house. Perhaps we'll just skip the tub and build a walk-in shower with the antique faucet as you suggested.
thanksShawn
That is a georgous house, I mean barn... um, house. Got any more pics?
Thanks for the compliment. The last thing we wanted to build was another house that sorta looks like a barn, so I tried to make it as correct as possible from the outside. It will be a LEED certified (gold) "house" once finished, and we plan to offer it as a vacation rental for outdoor sports-minded travelers (we live in the heart of northern Minnesota). I smile everytime somebody asks why we put such nice windows in that old barn, not realizing it is new construction...
We have a construction blog with more pics at http://www.greengateguesthouse.blogspot.com if you are interested.
Shawn
Edited 1/21/2009 12:57 pm ET by shawncal
If you don't like vinyl shower curtains you could use a cotton or canvas shower curtain. Water doesn't get through, just soaks and wicks down the fabric. With your hard? well water a cotton one would be much easier to clean than vinyl, we throw ours in the washing machine once every two or three weeks.
We use a "hotel" curtain.
It may be cotton but it is treated or something me thinks.
Ours seems like a heavy weight or tightly woven cotton sheet and not treated with something... I will have to ask the DW
Yes, very tightly woven. The reason I am guess at some king of treatment is that while it doesn't repel the water, it does not seem to become saturated like a cotton sheet would.
I'm curious about this option. We had considered it previously, but I was told that the fabric would stay wet so long (like a very wet towel), that it would start to smell of mold, especially in the summer when humidity prevents rapid drying. Also, I assumed that any hard water staining would not come out in the wash, but it sounds like you are not having a problem with that?Shawn
I am going to have to ask my wife for more info but... We have a heavy cotton curtain not as heavy as canvas but more like a high thread count bed sheet. My wife hemmed it so it would hit about halfway down the tub and it has acrylic beads sewn into the hem to weigh it down.
It does not stay wet for that long even when it is humid, shower in the morning, dry by 1 or 2. It is not like a towel that is fuzzy and designed to absorb water, but rather just meant to block water. The water just sheets off and wicks down. I could see treating the fabric with some kind of water repellent like Scotch Guard.
We use softened water but I don't recall problems when we didn't have the softener. The curtain is white, we wash it every couple of weeks and use a little bleach detergent with it. The content of your water will have a lot to do with staining, we don't have much iron in the water in MO mostly calcium and lime, you might have iron in your water really I have no clue.
-Day
P.S. Our shower is a drop-in tub with only one open face but a past client used one in a freestanding tub in the middle of the bath with no walls around it.
A lot of people do not like vinyl off gassing and all, but we use a clear heavy duty vinyl curtain on out standard tub, we just throw it in the wash by it self hot water bleach and soap.
Comes out looking brand new. Wallyo
Wow! O'Bama did usher in a new age! Frenchy posted an active link!
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"Hopefully you are speaking about a timberframed home when you say barn home and not just a stickframed home with a gambrel roof. "
why?
people with stick framed homes with gambrel roofs ain't welcome 'round these here parts Sheriff?
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
I'm not the sheriff, my humble opinion is that a home described as a barn should have barn like qualities.. not affectations of a barn roof..
I'm greatful that the OP did build a timberframe structure.
It's one of those little quirks. I see homes with a few boards nailed on the siding called an English Tudor home and it bothers me..
Like a Rolls Royce plastic Grill on a VW..
"I'm greatful that the OP did build a timberframe structure. "
yes, me too.
I will sleep better at night.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Build an oversized shower, and put the clawfoot in the middle of it.
Seriously -- a clawfoot tub was never designed for showers, and making it work with a showerhead entails somehow capturing ALL of the water. The only way to do that is with shower curtains.
Although I've seen attempts at putting tile around the lip, I've never seen one that looked good. They all looked like someone had installed a self-rimming sink as an undermount.
I tried thinking of a realistic way to do this and you've come up with the best.
Oddball idea done so it works and probably would look pretty good if done right.
Nicely done.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
OK, nothing at all to do with your shower question, but somewhat pertinent - my buddy's Dad was the Sheriff in Gordon County, Georgia back in the late 70's. Guy with a run-down old farmhouse decided to set the clawfoot tub into the floor, flush, actually hanging from the rim.
Pretty cool idea . . . unti the baby crawled in and drowned.
Greg
Best bet is to treat the space like a shower, including a floor drain. Design-wise, I'd "hide" the floor drain halfway along the long wall, and a quarter of the depth of the short one. This would make the floor drain mostly invisible.
Edit to insert that I'd not go less than 12" longer than the tub and 12" wider, to set the enclosure dimensions. And, really, 18-24 might be better (so a person could get a mop in around every so often, too).
Installation-wise, I'd pitch the floor back to the floor drain so it could be used without the tub as a curbless application.
Now, I'd probably run the tub drain through the floor, too, acknowledging the inherent problems there during original construction. It would be tempting to just let the tub drain run out onto the floor, and then on to the floor drain, but that might wash away at the tile immediately below the drain.
I've done similar for clients wanting ofuro, where the tub is free standing, and overflows to a discreet drain (usually a slot drain). Now, ofuro is about soaking, not showering, so the enclosure is a bit different. You'll want tile or a similar impervious surface right up the wall, say 60-72" up the wall.
I'd likely specify that the tub fillers/shower arm come out of the wall, too. But, that would be thinking ahead to when this might be a tub-less shower, 3,4, decades down the road.
Edited 1/20/2009 5:44 pm by CapnMac
As others have said tiling the whole room helps.
I grew up with a claw foot tub. When my Dad made it also a shower we all thought it a great idea. But standing in a claw foot tub is risky.
Soap film lines the sides and floor and when you step into the bottom curve while not paying attention soaping your head you'll slip and fall. We wound up with a bizillion foot stickers all around the bottom and edges.
Something to consider, be carefull
Just A Guy With A Hammer
We have removed such an installation from our house because we found that the tub wasn't very safe when used as a shower: the tub bottom has so much curvature that it was haard to find a stable way to stand in it, and turning around was an adventure. We would have liked to keep it, as it was consistent with our Victorian home, but it didn;t seem wise
Bob Chapman