I'm not a fan of shower curtains unless they are on a curved shower rod. I always feel very closed in when curtains are on a straight rod and the curved ones open up the space inside the tub nicely. I'm also not a huge fan of sliding shower doors--the tracks along the tub can get yucky and are difficult to clean, nevermind the glass issues. I would either do a curtain with a curved rod or a door like the one in the link below. If you go with the curtain, you can always tie it back on one side and allow that beautiful new tile to be the highlight that draws the eye into the room and it will still look spacious.

Hope this helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: DreamLine Aqualux Bathtub Door

Either would work but I think that anything clear is going to look more spacious than an opaque curtain.

Mydreamhome, thank you very much for your help. The tub door in your link is sleek and beautiful. It's a pity that we cannot wait for online shipment. I'll take a look at the curtain with a curved rod. I saw it in Lowes. Do you have a picture of your bathroom with it?

writersblock, really appreciate your help.

I like frameless tub/shower screens, I have stayed in B&B's in Europe that have had them and they worked great but were not obtrusive looking. I posted a link, but I bet you could get a better deal by getting quotes from local glass dealers

Here is a link that might be useful: Tub Screens

That is a nice looking tub door but I don't care for them because

1) the tracks are something a slippery child can fall on - or elderly person with poor balance

2) the tracks are hard to clean well

3) when you push a curtain open, the room actually seems more spacious as there is no barrier at all at the tub's edge, not even a clear one.

We are happy with the curved rod curtain we have. Lots of elbow room, more than with a door. The curtain fabric provides a nice contrast with the slickness and hardness of the rest of the bath. OTOH if you had a very contemporary style you might prefer the door.

Janesylvia -

My wife has that door, or something very close, in her 9x5 hall bath. It looks good, you can see the tile nicely, etc. We do not use that shower/bathtub much.

Functionally, shower curtains can be moved out of the way, to make it easier to clean, maybe easier to use the tub, maybe easier to bath children. In her (typical) setup, the toilet is by the tub, which makes it a bit more difficult to turn on/off the water from outside. My wife doesn't like them and will not let me consider them for my house remodel, so I don't have to decide!

For our guest bath which is our 3 boys' bathroom has a shower curtain on a straight rod. They don't use the shower yet but we are thinking about doing the curved one later on since as a previous poster said, there isn't any room for a person to shower without the shower curtain sticking to you. My grandmother installed a shower/tub door with the tracks about 20 years ago when she was still fit enough to climb over it. Now she wishes she would have stuck with the curtain because 1) it's too hard to clean and 2) she HATES the track that it's on. Another thing is when my boys stay over, they LOVE to slam the doors or make them open. To give a "boy" a bath in that tub with the door, I would like to rip the doors out so I don't have to fight them when I am trying to wash them up. Another factor that my grandmother complains about is being 75 and being able to reach beyond the doors to clean her tub. She simply cannot anymore. She has to get in her tub to be able to clean it. I'm so glad I don't have the doors when I give my 4 month old a bath. It would probably have been uninstalled. Don't get me wrong, they look really great, but since I have 4 boys, I don't want them. We don't even have a shower door on our Master Bath shower, my husband works in construction as a mechanic. We use a clear vinyl thick curtain with a fabric shower curtain on the outside. It's just so much easier to clean than having to fight a door.

I love shower curtains. I usually have someone make one for me, since I don't sew well enough to do it myself. If someone makes it, you can have it go to the floor, (usually 72" doesn't make it to the floor. I've also had a separate valance made that can be shirred onto a separate rod, placed several inches above and just in front of the curtain. It makes it look custom, and also makes the room seem taller. I always have great luck finding fabric or even a beautiful sheet that can be used to really make the shower curtain a great addition to the bathroom.

Janesylvia--Here are those pics you asked for. If you really liked that door & prefer a door to the curtain, you could put up a straight tension shower curtain rod for now & order the door in the link. When the door comes in, have the contractor come back to install. You have to drill into the tile to install the curved rods just like you would have to do with that door, so it's truly a once and done situation--you won't be able to trade wither one out for another option without replacing (or filling in) the tile.

Hope this helps!

Here is a link that might be useful: Another Dreamline Door Style

We just recently completed a bath remodel and spent a lot of time and energy debating between a door and curtain on the bathtub. We ended up using a double curved rod and love it. The curved rod gives some extra "elbow room" and makes the shower feel a lot more spaciuous. I bought regular window panels with back tabs to hang on the outside rod. We hung the rod a little higher than normal so that the panels end just above the floor. One panel hangs on either side of the opening,(they are for decoration only, and will never be pulled closed)and I think it creates a warm, soft look that also "frames" out the tile work on the back wall of the tub. I chose one of the new lightweight fabric liners in a performance type fabric that dries quickly. The liner tucks neatly behind the panels when not in use.

The panels and the liner are washable. Easy to care for and keep clean. Much easier than the shower door we had. Another consideration is that I like to take baths and much prefer to have the curtains pulled aside than be behind the door.

Sadie - You've described exactly what I've been thinking of doing in our remodel. I wasn't sure about how the two panels would look on the curved rod - would you mind sharing a photo?

And where did you find your nice liner - that's the other thing I'm searching for.

I bought my liner at Target, but I saw they also had them at Penneys. I chose a light ivory that works with the color of the tile and also allows the light to pass through. I will gladly share the pics, but probably won't be able to do so until tomorrow.

Thank you so much for all the responses above, which are really helpful. Almost all voted for curtain.

Mydreamhome, thank you very much for the photos and your constant help. the curtains look very nice. May I ask where you bought the rod?

Is it better to get a double curved rod or a single one? What is the double one for? Is it Lowes where I can get a good quality one?

Really appreciate your help.

Here's how I used my double curved rod. Regular window panels on the outside rod and a fabric liner on the inside.

With the liner pulled:

With the liner open:

To make it easier to take apart for laundering, I took apart each tab and sewed velcro to them.

Our curved rods are made by the original company that introduced them to the market and they are called 'The Crescent Rod'. The double rod allows for 2 things--1)you can hang your pretty curtain on the outer rod & your liner on the inner rod to make removal of the liner for cleaning easier or 2)you can hang both the pretty curtain and the liner on the outer rod and use the inner one to drape your damp towel across to dry out of sight. We originally bought ours for the first reason, but then I found double sided shower hooks at Target that allowed both the pretty curtain and the liner to hang on opposite sides of a single hook making liner removal is super easy. So now we take advantage of using the inner rod for hanging the damp towel to dry.

We got our rod at Tuesday Morning--don't know if you all have those stores where you are. I have seen them on eBay and on Signature Hardware's site. Mom bought the Moen and some other adjustable brand and ended up taking them back to the store after comparing the quality with mine. Make sure you follow the instructions included with the kit regarding how high to place it (especially if you get the double rod) and install and you should be fine.

Hope this helps!

Sadie - thank you for posting photos. I love the way the panels frame the tile work. We actually have a window in our shower so I want all that natural light to show through most of the time.

I really appreciate your showing your velcro trick. I hadn't really considered how difficult it would be to take them down for cleaning! I had thought of using drapery rings to hang the panels, but then you'll see the bar and I don't think that would look as nice.

Lots to think about!

Sadie, thank you very much for the photos and sharing the velcro trick. It looks very nice.

Mydreamhome, thank you very much for your helpful information. Did you get the following rod?
http://www.signaturehardware.com/product10289

Lowes also sells double rod, but I saw reviews on their site complaining difficult installation.

On JCPenney site, I found it sells double rod with no need to drill holes in walls (should be strong enough to hold damp towel because it claims to hold up to 30 lbs).
http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?Grptyp=PRD&ItemId=1d9fb89&cmOrigId=1cda203&cmTypeFlag=RichRel&cmCatID=searchresults
But I saw one review complaining rust although it claims to be chip and rust resistant. I don't know if it's a good quality one.

The one at Signature Hardware looks similar. I found the name of the manufacturer the original crescent rod we have--it's Shower Solutions. I couldn't find any of their double rods, but here's a link to some stores that have the single rod:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=shower+solutions&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=18108263008814382879&sa=X&ei=XVlzT_rKPMnLtgfDvNWPBg&ved=0CGsQ8wIwAw

I don't think I would trust a rod that says it can hold up to 30 lbs of weight and it does not screw into the wall. What are they using to secure it--suction cups? I know my experience with tension rods is such that you're lucky if it holds 5-10 lbs of weight. I would give that one a skip.

Hope this helps!

Our rod is the Moen. We had the tile installer drill the holes for us, and then did the installation ourselves.. The quality was fine as far as we were concerned, and so far no problems.

As a note to previous post, Lowes sells the model as follows:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_41737-336-35602BNDMV_0_?productId=3299188&Ntt=shower+rod&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl__0_s%3FNtt%3Dshower%2Brod&facetInfo=#BVRRWidgetID
I don't know if it's good. Thank you very much.

The reviews confirmed what I thought when I looked at the design. The two rods coming into one seems like a good idea, but then you have 1 connection point trying to support two rods of different length and weight and cantilever depth which is a recipe for it to come loose. If you're doing a double rod, I would likely go with the one from Signature Hardware.

Thank you so much, Sadie and mydreamhome. I saw Bed Bath & Beyond sells double curved rod. In amazon there were reviews complaining difficult installation and suggested using toggle bolt instead of anchor bolt supplied

http://www.amazon.com/Moen-DN2141OWB-Double-Curved-Shower/dp/B00499X726/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=17301373

I don't know if the one from Moen is as good as the one from Signature Hardware.

By the way, I dyed my hair sometimes, is it OK to use shower curtain? I had no problem with tub door before. For shower curtain, is fabric better than plastic or is it better to get both?

Really appreciate your help.

> I dyed my hair sometimes, is it OK to use shower curtain?

I wouldn't do this with a fabric curtain, myself. In the shower I use for this I found a very nice looking vinyl curtain (Oxford, from Lowes) that looks like tucked fabric, and even so they only last about a year or so before you can't get the stains out anymore. My plan when I renovate is a glass surround for the shower I'll use for that and a really nice curtain for the bath with the tub.

Good question, Janesylvia. The curved rod will definitely help reduce the chance of hair dye getting on the shower curtain. I have only dyed my hair myself once with a fabric shower curtain liner; it was with the curved rod and it was fine--no issues. I think the fabric is some kind of man made fabric so stains tend to come out easier as well.

I prefer the fabric liner myself. Something about brushing up against a vinyl shower curtain just gives me the creeps. Just make sure you have a liner and a separate outer curtain. I would not use one curtain for both purposes. The fabric liner usually lasts 1-2 years then you have to replace. They run about $10 for standard size at Wal-Mart, $18 for the extra long size at Kohl's.

Hope this helps!

I would only admit it here, but I color my hair every three weeks, and wash it out every time in my shower with the fabric liner. Not a problem. If I do happen to get some on the liner, I just rinse it off right away. It launders up beautifully -- a little stain pretreat on the bottom hem and any other spots and its looks like new.

Once you try a fabric liner, you will never go back to the plastic. The fabric breathes and is so much softer and lighter than the vinyl.

I would never go back to doors with tracks! We now have a curved rod (Moen) but instead of using double rods, we use a single rod with shower curtain hooks that have 2 hooks on the bottom. Each hook looks like an upside-down T. One of the hooks holds the curtain and the other holds the liner. The single end curves over the rod and has the little rollers so it moves easily. It works well and the curtain and the liner can be removed separately.

You should check out our frameless or semi-frameless shower/tub doors.
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Here is a link that might be useful: DreamLine Shower/Tub Doors