Picking Out A Tub

By Kurt K. Schefken

Most people think they can just walk into a plumbing store or a home improvement center and buy a tub. It's not that easy. You will need to go shopping with some information in hand before you can pick the right tub for your bathroom.

Let's call them the five magic ingredients.

First, you need to know the dimensions of your bathroom. It would be a shame to buy a bathtub and find you can't fit it, or a large tub overpowers a small room. Measure your room's width and length, and even the height, in case you may consider a raised tub.

Second, you need to have the dimensions of the area in the bathroom where the tub is intended to go. The tub may fit in the room, but if you were planning on putting it in an alcove, you have to have the exact measurements. Again, proportion must be taken into account, since you don't want the tub to look lost in the space.

Third, decide upon the material you want your bathtub to be made of. There are so many materials available today, from plastic to marble. Porcelain, marble or stone may be the most attractive, but they are also the most expensive. Plastic is the least expensive, and does not show scratches as easily as porcelain.

Fourth, decide upon the color you want for your tub before you go shopping. White or beige are the most popular colors, but you can have a tub in almost any color you can imagine including lavender, lime green or yellow. If you have been planning the bathroom decorating, you probably have a color scheme picked out, and the color of the tub should go with this. Remember also, that even if a lime green bathtub would look good in the room now, when you want to change the decorating scheme, you may be stuck with a tub that doesn't go with anything else. Better to stick to a neutral color.

Fifth, know how much you can afford to spend on the bathtub. You can probably look through store catalogs to get an idea of prices, or just go to a number of stores to comparison shop. This is where shopping on the Internet can come in handy instead of spending days driving around from store to store. Keep in mind that the store will probably charge shipping charges, and in the case of a heavy item such as a bathtub, they will be steep. You may be better off paying a little more for a tub from a store near you than getting it for less and ending up paying more because of shipping charges.

Keep these five things in mind as you shop, and you will end up with a perfect bathtub for your bathroom and you will keep it within your budget.

About the Author
Being very passionate about compressor maintenance and air pressure systems, Kurt Schefken was editing quite a few articles on this particular topic. His observations on air compressor systems can be encountered on www.insidewoodworking.com and other websites.

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