How Your Bathroom Can Make You Smile

The bathroom has become an important room these days for an increasing population of seniors and disabled war veterans.

Those groups, plus anyone with special needs, are benefiting from a growing science in how to accommodate them by reconfiguring tubs and showers, adding grab bars and non-slip surfaces, providing shower seats and even controls that can operate the shower flow from a seated position.

Also, the growing interest in purchasing older homes in various Louisville neighborhoods is creating a need to upgrade older or damaged tubs and showers.

Plus, sometimes you just want to change the bathroom aesthetics.

The options are several, from refinishing or re-glazing the tub or shower to ripping it out altogether and installing a new one.

A company called Bath Fitter was begun in 1984, creating sturdy, durable bathtub liners for Canadian hotels. Three years later, it had entered the residential market, producing one-piece bath and shower walls, bathtub liners, shower liners, shower enclosures, freestanding tubs and showers, plus color-matched accessories.

It’s only one way to go, of course. The important thing is, homeowners no longer need to be captive to their bathrooms’ period plumbing or outdated installations.

“While we’re often called in because customers are having trouble with accessibility, like stroke or surgery victims who can’t get into and out of the tub, we also have a full array of colors, wall features, patterns, colors and tub and shower fixtures,” says Debbie Sheehan, accounts manager at the Bath Fitter showroom in Louisville.

Bath Fitter’s service involves coming out and talking to customers, finding out what they want to accomplish, discussing all options and taking a full set of measurements. All the company’s liners, walls and floors are made to measure, thermoformed in its plant in Tennessee and all the fixtures used are Moen or Delta brands.

Customers are also invited to visit the company website, www.bathfitter.com, where an interactive section called Design Your Own allows visitors to plug in their own preferences – choosing styles and colors, patterns, fixture types, accessories like soap dishes and shelves, doors or curtains (and even straight or curved curtain rods) – to see what it could all look like.

“Some people simply want to reline their tubs, others to pull the old one out entirely and replace it,” Sheehan says. “Relining is less expensive, of course, and we can line almost any type of tub, porcelain or steel, though not fiberglass.” The company also doesn’t refinish or re-glaze.

“All liners are not the same,” she says. “Ours are 100 percent acrylic, inside and outside the tub or shower. Acrylic will not rust or corrode and shouldn’t discolor.”

Also, she says, poorly done glazing can begin to peel after a few months. “We don’t want to provide a temporary fix, we want something permanent and, in fact, offer a lifetime guarantee.”

Bath Fitter’s tubs and showers come with a dimpled, slip-resistant bottom, though Sheehan says people who are especially concerned take a grainier upgrade for a little better traction.

Glass shower doors come in frosted, clear or designer-patterned finishes, with chrome, brushed nickel, rubbed bronze, pearl or white frames. And doors on the tub are hung from the top and fitted snugly to a flat piece angled along the tub shelf so there’s no soapy gunk accumulation on the runners that make them difficult to slide.

“We’re also beginning to offer shields instead of doors, a partial non-sliding glass panel engineered to keep water from splashing out even though it only covers about three-quarters of the tub,” Sheehan says. “It’s a growing design trend and new for us. I’m interested to see how popular it will become.”

Grab bars are an increasingly important feature, and Bath Fitter installers customize the angle and location of the bars to people’s needs. The bars are all knurled, for maximum grippability, and come in a variety of finishes and colors, whether the intent is to blend in with the rest of the design or to stand out so bathers can more easily see where they are.

There are also molded seat options, whether installed in the corner of the shower or folded-down units on the walls.

And Bath Fitter’s walls, though acrylic, can replicate many tile sizes and shapes, even older, hard-to-get types like increasingly popular subway tiles.

It’s all on the company’s web site.

Showroom personnel answer the phone with, “This is Bath Fitter. How can I make you smile today?” If that doesn’t make you smile, understanding all the bathroom options available to you – whether for redecorating or better function – should cause a smile to start forming. VT

The Bath Fitter showroom is at 2600 Stanley Gault Pkwy, 502-238-9714. Hours are 8-5 on weekdays, evenings and weekends by appointment.

About the Author

Steve Kaufman

Steve Kaufman is an experienced Louisville-based writer and journalist who started out life, once upon a time, as a sportswriter. He's now scratching a late-in-life itch with his column "Catnip" and, occasionally, with pieces for ASeaofBlue.com, the Kentucky Wildcats blog on SB Nation.

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