1st Rental - Shower & Bath Doors - Glass or Curtains?

Question

Hi everyone,

This would be my 1st rental property, and am reaching out to the community for some hopefully veteran opinions.

Should I pay approx. $2400 for glass shower doors or $500 for quality curved curtain rods?

Background: This is a 2 berm/ 2 bath in the valley of Los Angeles in a nice neighborhood. The condo vibe is upper middle class in the sense of clean, neat, new white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, etc.

I'm concerned the bathrooms are too small for a curved curtains and they may make the user feel claustrophobic.

On the other hand, $2400 is a lot of money and would eat a lot into the profits.

In addition, these tubs are only fiberglass and not tile... unsure how nice glass would look on fiberglass

Expecting ~ $2300-2800/month rent

Any opinions are welcome! Thank youShower #1

Bath #2

Bruce Woodruff · Answer

Neither. You can get sliding glass door at Home Depot for that size. And install them yourself. $500.

Jonathan R McLaughlin · Answer

the less that can break and the cheaper the replacement the better. I think you are right, though, rod and curtain on the tub and it looks like you need a door on the shower, at least at that price point. And water leakage with a curtain on the shower will trash that floor in no time.

Andrew Litton · Answer

Update: Here's a picture of the shower doors installed. They were $700 at home depot and I think they look sooooo good!! Semi-frameless so tall people can get in without ducking. About $200 installation for someone to help. Feeling like a real soon to be land lord. :-)

Justing waiting on the shower bar for the 2nd bathroom with the tub now. Then I can put the place on the market.

Scott Mac · Answer

Hi Andrew,

A $500 shower rod (???) Amazon curved rod's might be a LOT cheaper (???)

Find a stud to screw the rod into if you can, or if you can't consider opening the wall and adding a horizontal 2x4 brace to screw it to (depending on how much you want to harden the unit) then blend the opening back with the wall. That will keep your rod up there and stable and (possibly) save you service calls and disappointed renters when it pulls out of the plaster.

Another option might be glass for the walk in shower, and renter provided curtain for the bath tub shower.

If it were mine I'd swap out the little round front toilets for elongated ones (why limit your potential renters to those who fit the small size).

Other than that, it looks beautiful!

Just my 2 cents.

Andrew Litton · Answer

@Scott Mac Thanks for the input. I'll look into getting elongated toilets, if I have time. Aiming to get this rented starting beginning of January.

@Jim K. The shower and tub i just paid $900 to get reglazed. They're both 20+ year old all fiberglass one piece installs. I was wondering to rip them out and do tile but decided to keep the project scope small as I didn't want to get in over my head, rather just get started with a rental rather than risk a delay. So i think the plumbing is outdated because it hasn't been touched in decades. Like you said, unfortunately the plumbing is not modern and luxurious. Anyway, it'll have to do for now!

For the DIY shower install, gonna give it a go. I read over the directions and it does seem complicated, but will give it the old college try. I'm pretty handy and if i get stuck, will have to call in backup. Figure if there a week for install, I can jet adjustments. What's gonna make it even harder is the shower is fiberglass which shower doors are typically not installed on. Hopefully it'll turn out okay. Will upload pics when done!

Jim K. · Answer

That's actually pretty good news! Except for the three-handle valve on the tub. All too often, those were put in with no supports up top for the showerhead other than the shower arm resting on the lip of the hole drilled in the fiberglass. But the fact that the bare bones plumbing is old-school not cheapie-new means it's more likely you've got a stud in the right place for the door. Don't worry about installing a door on a fiberglass surround, that will be find. Just make sure you screw it into a wood stud UNDER the surround, not air.

Just be careful and smart, and you can pull off a good DIY installation for a shower door. One thing you will definitely want to invest in is a blade for cutting non-ferrous metal (aluminum) in your miter saw to cut the crossbar on top that the door will hang on precisely. They're not particularly expensive. Don't think about cutting that crossbar precisely and cleanly with a hacksaw or a bimetal blade in your oscillating tool. Doesn't work well at all. Another good investment, if you don't already have it, will be a digital level for hanging that top crossbar exactly level to a tenth or less of a degree. If you don't and hang that sucker a bit crooked, especially with the cheaper, lighter semi-frameless sliding doors (the Delta models), one of the sliding doors will tend to slide open a bit when you use the shower. I do suggest you put in a cheaper, lighter sliding door, NOT something like a $2K full-on frameless Kohler Levity with 3/8 inch glass -- each door is just impossibly heavy to lift on to the beefy crossbar for a normal-sized person.

Good luck, Andrew!

Jim K. · Answer

@Andrew Litton

Somebody should at least point out here that judging by his other work, this plumber isn't the sort of guy you want to work with over the long haul.

You have what looks like a rather expensive straight-to-stud base+surround with two benches for your shower and all he put in as a shower was a generic two-knob valve with a generic shower nozzle. Looking over at the tub, we have a generic three-handle job with, again, just a shower arm and what looks like a standard tub spigot with no diverter. Why a three-handle valve? I dislike those things, although they simplify behind-the-wall plumbing.

So it's pretty damned bare-bones to my eye given how much you obviously spent on the tub+surround and especially the shower+surround kits. Did the plumber explain to you that you could upscale both baths rather easily by putting in either a shower tower or a wall bar shower kit? I doubt he did.

Now, you've received some good advice here about putting in a door for the shower and a curtain for the tub, but it should be said that putting in a shower door, especially a 60-inch slider like this one, is rarely as simple and straightforward a DIY project as some of the posters are making it out to be. One of the popular frameless or semi-frameless numbers that Delta and Kohler put out can get pretty tricky.

And that's the main reason I brought up the questionable plumbing decisions. It's likely that the same outfit put in the behind-the-wall plumbing and also did the framing for the shower stall. Well, if you want a big sliding shower door, you need a good strong stud right behind the shower surround in the appropriate place on the edge of the surround. Sadly, I wouldn't bet on that stud being in the right position. It's too easy to cheap out. So that's something else you're going to have to make sure of.

Lastly, @Scott Mac's comment on the elongated toilet is spot on.

Jim K. · Answer

Kohler Echelon with a half-header, magnetic closure. This design completely avoids the header bar leveling issue I talked about. $200 for installation help is a good deal on your first shower door, most definitely.

Bruce Woodruff · Answer

Good job....you saved a ton of $$ and learned how do to it yourself. I bet it was kinda fun too...?

Andrew Litton · Answer

Thanks everyone for your opinions.

You're right the rods at $250/each is way high of an estimate. They're $40 each on home depot. :-)

The glass doors I'd like would be cheaper too at: $700 each

https://www.homedepot.com/p/KO...

I took out the old doors and showered with a curtain last night. The shower felt much larger with that. Anyway, I've decided to do a $700 glass door for the shower and a rod for the bath; to keep costs managable. This way, the renter could be sold with the nice shower, don't think they'll care much about the bathroom with the tub. The bathtub can always be upgraded to a glass door in the future.

I don't want to go any cheaper on glass doors because I don't think they look nice and feel they'll make the place look dated.

1st Rental - Shower & Bath Doors - Glass or Curtains?

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