Yesterday I spent $3 in gas driving down to South Asheville to visit a “bathroom” showroom. Yes, it’s a paradox. Because you don’t expect to walk into a huge warehouse space only to be confronted by the receptacles of your most private moments in life.
But I needed to buy a bathtub and a shower system.
I hate showrooms. I feel incredibly unhip in showrooms. And I felt even less hip because I wanted to buy a simple, white bathtub, even though there is no such item made anymore. There are like 50 options for a myriad of tubs in 40 different colors. Turns out the Lightening Gray tub is a popular color. I kid you not. Do they use the word “lightening” because it feels like there’s a storm in your bathtub? Or because bathtubs are already lightening rods and if yours is gray, you’re even more likely to be electrified while soaping your armpits?
Just give a white tub, please. I need a tub with one side, because the other three will be enclosed by walls, so then I had to decide on the side paneling. Since when do tubs have side paneling? What’s wrong with smooth, easy-to-wipe-down acrylic siding? Who needs panels on the side of the tub? But there are all shapes and sizes of decorative tub side paneling. I went with the simplest paneling possible on my white one-sided acrylic tub, which I had to search for in the catalog (there wasn’t anything so basic on the showroom floor–only copper cauldron type tubs which made me think of Roman gladiators for some reason. Or maybe they made me think of Roman orgies).
Then there’s jets. Everybody wants jets. I don’t. I don’t want to pay for the extra electrical work or electricity. Plus I hear jets are a cleaning nightmare and harbor all kind of nasty (fecal) bacteria in their housings. It turns out what I want is called a soaking tub. Simple, white, with a couple indentations on the edges so the soap’s not always sliding into the water. That’s it. Ordered. Finally.
But no, then we had to talk spouts and shower systems and valves and drains. OMG, who knew ordering a basic bathtub was so complex?
I wanted the lowest flow shower head available (yes, granola me). I want to conserve water, although it seems I was the only person in the showroom who did. While everyone else was buying humongous rainforest shower heads with multiple wall jets, all in polished bronze and matching shades of lightening gray, I was trying to find a 1.6 gallon per minute low-flow shower head. Which I did, and the only coating option is chrome, because well, polished bronze and low-flow just don’t mesh. Which is fine. Most people are happy with chrome fixtures. Hell, most people are happy with plumbing that works most of the time.
Finally, after an hour of catalogues and discussion of systems and shower trim (can I just tell you that the trim, i.e., the piece of metal that you use to turn the water on and off, costs almost as much as the entire bathtub), I was released from the intimidating showroom, and late for lunch.
Tomorrow my simple white no-jet soaking tub and my low-flow shower system and my very expensive trim pieces (not that kind of trim, you dirty-minded scum) will be delivered.
Next I need to pick out doors, tile, and rock for the retaining wall. I think I’ll like choosing rock. Surely that can’t be too complex. Or can it?
Share This
In the same situation, I went to Lowe’s and discovered that their acrylic paneling is entirely affordable. Homo Depot doesn’t carry it. Bathroom showrooms are soo not edgy, dude. But between the two big stoopid boxes, I was able to come out vaguely green and affordable.
Oohh Edgy Mama. It is all coming back to me now…I just had a fleeting moment of panic reading your entry today. I did the same thing but had the added fun of a time crunch (due to cosmic forces beyond my reach) and had to take delivery of whatever they had in stock…but still as basic as can be. It is VERY difficult to be basic in this day and age. Each decision has at least four other decisions to be made either before or simultaneously. My husband would have just thrown in the towel…but I thrived on it. Very glad to be done, though. And don’t want to do it again any time soon. Hang in there!!
Now that you have offended your “hoity” Atlanta cousins - you sure could use one right about now!
Good Luck with the project.
When we redid our little bungalow on North Street, the space available for the new white “soaking” tub (to replace the pepto-bismol colored one) was too small for the standard tubs. So I ended up on Leicester Hwy at a trailer supply place (or should I say mobile home?) to get a trailer tub - they are a few inches shorter and definitely basic. I thought it looked great in the renovated bathroom!
Um… how does fecal matter get into the jets in the first place?
The Tragically Hip’s Gordon Downie says in one of his pre-song ramblings, “When you’re in the shower in a hotel, you are inside a room, inside a room, inside a room.”
Not sure if that is relevant.
Trying to pick out that stuff can make you want to shoot yourself, or whoever it was that decided you needed a new bathroom. And god forbid you get the smirking guy at HD or Lowes, hopefully you get a decent sort who’s not eyeing your curves instead of your list. What I wanna know is about the rock walls and your overall design, that sounds beautiful! Re: the fecal matter on the jets, my daughter had this weird rash for a while and the doc told us to clean the tub w/clorox every time she used it, as all manner of germs and ikkiness resides on various parts of our bodies at all times — in the warm water, it can travel all over the place. The jets recirculate the water, so whatever is in there, goes through all the tubing etc. Yeccch. It’s like making the mistake of watching one of those documentaries where they take infrared lights into hotel rooms, and then you can never sit on a hotel bedspread again.