Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
hobokenkitchen

Soaking tub - have I already messed up before we've really begun?

hobokenkitchen
11 years ago

We ordered a Kohler Mariposa 5.5ft apron soaking tub which I thought/ think we had in an old bathroom.

I just re-read the specs and it's only 20" deep? That seems super shallow for a soaking tub? It arrives on Friday and DH is all for sending it back, but now I'm all confused and wondering if 20" is super shallow for a soaking tub, or if that's in fact normal??

Any thoughts? How deep are your soaking tubs?

Comments (31)

  • cat_mom
    11 years ago

    We have Toto 1525's in two bathrooms; the listed dimensions are: 60" x 32" x 16-5/16"

    Description in the Q/A section on FaucetsDirect.com states: The Toto FBY1525RP/LP is 15.25" in basin height with a total height of 16". The overflow is 12 3/4".

    It never occurred to us at the time to seek out deeper tubs, though I am sure they would be nice (!). I do sometimes wish our tubs were longer, to allow for stretching out in them, but our bathrooms' size(s) didn't allow for that.

    So, I think yours sounds like it will be a nice depth for soaking.

    HTH!

  • claybabe
    11 years ago

    Hoboken, it looks like the mariposa is 14" to the drain, and there is a device you can put in the drain (upside down) to increase that by 1.5 inches I believe. Someone else will have to chime in with the name of it...

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    It's more the look of it that is worrying me. I think the depth should be pretty good compared to a standard tub - we sat on the floor last night and measured where water would come to. Lol.
    It's just that 20" off the floor looked so very insignificant on my tape measure, and we want it to LOOK like a soaking tub.

    Still it arrives on Friday so I guess we'll know for sure then!!

  • Lynne Reno
    11 years ago

    20" is plenty deep for soaking

  • ILoveRed
    11 years ago

    I have had the Kohler IronWorks for 6 yrs. It's 19 1/4" and is awesome. Yours is deeper than mine.

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    A Saarinen Tulip dining table is only 28.5, and you sit at that and eat off of it. I think 20 will look substantial enough in place.

  • lee676
    11 years ago

    There are overflow cover plates available that have an opening only at the top, which allows you to fill the tub about 2 1/2" deeper, though you have to be careful not to splash around too much. I'm considering one of these so I can get a deep tub without having to climb over a really tall sidewall to use it.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    An update.....

    We now have one bathroom and two tubs.

    I went into our local Fergusons on Thursday and there looking at me was a STUNNING Victoria and Albert free standing soaking tub floor model marked down from $5000 to $999, almost the same price we paid for the Mariposa (with drain).

    I feel like a crazy person, but we bought it.
    So now we have the Mariposa showing up today, and the new tub showing up next Wednesday.

    Returning the orginal tub will cost a couple of hundred bucks, so I think we're going to store it and use it in our guest bathroom if we ever get around to doing it - or we'll try and sell it on ebay or craigslist.

    So yes, no question that the new tub looks deep enough - I just hope this whole plan goes well and doesn't turn into a disaster!!

    Thanks for all the advice!

  • kashmi
    11 years ago

    Congrats on the excellent find!

  • williamsem
    11 years ago

    Awesome find! It's comforting to know I'm not the only person that continues to second guess choices and make spontaneous decisions that then need to worked in. I love this site! I feel normal here!

    Any pics of that new tub? Sounds fantastic.

  • enduring
    11 years ago

    Hobo, how could this turn into a disaster, you've got 2 tubs.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Ok so here are the two tubs - I wonder if everyone will prefer the original! Lol.

    Also if anyone near Philly/ Princeton needs a brand new, in box Kohler Mariposa soaking tub with vibrant brushed nickle drain, just let me know! : )

    The Kohler Mariposa:

    The new soaking tub which arrives on Wednesday:

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    How much reconfiguration will have to be done to the bathroom to utilize the new tub? You are going from a 3 wall alcove tub to a free standing that needs a lot more room around it (both visually and so you can a least clean around it). Do you have a lot of extra room to play with?

  • williamsem
    11 years ago

    Those are both fantastic! If you love the second one, which I assume you do since you purchased it after you already had a tub coming, and you have the room I would definitely go with that for a soaking tub. In addition to loving it, knowing what a fantastic deal you got will make it even sweeter.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Palimpsest, no wedon't have a lot of extra room. It will fit, but it's going to be tight. We could reconfigure the layout to give it more room, but then everything else would be tight.

    Do you think visually it won't look good unless it has piles of room on both sides? I think we can cancel it until delivery so if that's the case I guess we could part with it although it would be heartbreaking.
    My thought is that it would look beautiful wherever it was, but perhaps I'm wrong?

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    You don't need a Ton of room, no. But the Mariposa fits in a 5-1/2 space with zero clearance--the edges of the tub are built-in/covered by the wall surface.

    This tub needs a little bit of breathing room around the lip--it can't touch the wall anywhere. I would say you would want a minimum of about 3" on each end and on the alcove side. That's only 6" more in length but in a bathroom that can be a lot.

    It also needs a different filler. I think these usually have floor mounted fillers which also take up room.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    We don't have 6".
    I am not a fan of floor mounted tub fillers. We were planning on wall mounting the tub filler so it would fill from the middle of the tub against the wall which is a look we prefer.

    Ugh, now I'm second guessing. : (

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Here is a pic of the planned spot for the tub.

    It is not a lot of room. We want it to go all the way against the wall in the 3 wall alcove so one could look out of the window while in it, and with the tub filler coming out of the back wall, probably below a framed feature section of tile. It will only just fit.

  • williamsem
    11 years ago

    Could you angle it for a better view and out the filler in the left corner?

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I don't think so - would block sink access I think?

    Plus I think this needs to fill in the middle (?) in case 2 people want to soak at the same time?

    Annoying, I have a PDF of the bathroom plan (drawn by me and not to scale, but gives a good idea) and I can't get tinypic to accept it as an upload.

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    The Mariposa is 5-1/2 nomimal too, which means it fits in a 5-1/2 or slightly under finished space, since the edges of the tub are attached to the FRAMING, not the finished wall. Remember that the cementboard and tile go OVER the edges of the Mariposa tub.

    This tub may also be Nominal sized, meaning it is meant to fit in a Finished 5-1/2 foot space. But I don't think a tub like this is meant to touch the walls at any point. How would you clean around it? There would be an irregular curved contact. It needs at least a bare inch of breathing room around each side, I would say. You may need a longer filler spout at the very least.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    The filler spout I think will be ok. We got a standard one off the wall and tested if it would work and it does.

    This tub will be a pain to clean no matter how it is installed. It is narrower at the bottom than the top which means getting on hands and knees and cleaning the floor and sides of the tub from underneath. that's no matter how it's installed with feet or space on each side or inches.

    Floor cleaning should be easy enough as again it is narrower at the bottom allowing access to the floor underneath the lip on the 3 open sides.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I took a picture of the plan. Obviously not to scale!

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    If your tub is the Toulouse, it is 70-1/2 inches long.

    Your Mariposa is actually 72" (not 66", like I said)

    So you may have just enough space to not have it contact the walls. You may be able to finish the walls a bit differently too, making them a tiny bit thinner than if you had to create a watertight seal at the tub margin

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    No, you were right first time on the Mariposa with 66".

    We were talking about changing the walls by flipping the relevant studs so give a little more room, or moving the whole wall out a couple of inches which we could do.... for a price.

    I think the problem is we are doing too much at once - kitchen, bathroom, a ton of painting and stuff in other rooms, painting the whole outside of the house, about to have a baby, deal with a pool for the first time and just moved in.
    I am probably not on top of the details in the way I should be. There are just 10 million decisions that have to be made all at once. Really struggling with tile decisions too.

    I am trying to stay as on top of it as I can but it's hard to catch all these details.

    Do you have any comments on the size of the vanity? We need to decide between a 60" or 72" vanity.

    For reference this is a big house - the master bath is surprisingly small for the sie of the home.

    The other two bathrooms both have double sinks.... and both will be bigger than the master bath sinks, no matter what we do.
    The guest bathroom has a 92" vanity (which is a bit big TBH, we need 2 of everything we share because we can't reach the other side), and the small bathroom has a 77" vanity.

    We've been looking at these 3 mainly:

    These are 72":

    and this one is 60":

  • williamsem
    11 years ago

    Could you put the vanity between the shower and window? That would make your size issue easier to solve as you can fill that space. Then you can put the tub where the vanity is now in the diagram and the toilet where the tub is. I have no clue about bathroom design, but I'm of the opinion that more ideas is better, if only to spark discussion.

    My personal preference is enclosed space for the vanity, so the first one appeals to me. I don't like the pressure of keeping things in view perfectly cleaned and stacked, and I don't like to dust more areas than necessary. But I have a significant dust allergy so I even put barrister bookcases in the "library" (converted out third, and smallest, bedroom to a reading room) to minimize the dusting.

    I hope you can make the tub work, it is beautiful!

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I actually thought that exact same thing and think it could be a possibility.
    I think I prefer the layout we have, but I'm going to try drawing it out again and see how it looks. I am clinging to having that back wall be a feature wall as it's really what you see when you walk into the bathroom, but maybe it could work just as well. Need to keep playing with it!

    Thanks for the suggestion!

  • palimpsest
    11 years ago

    I would consider using the shorter vanity. It will only give each person 30" instead of 36", but with the 72" vanity:

    125.5 - 72 = 53.5 -31.5 (tub) = 22". I am assuming the vanity will not be flush against the door trim so there may be 16" -18" between the vanity which is 21 deep (24 deep? some newer ones are) and the tub.

    That is adequate but visually I think it is going to be crowding the tub.

    I would go with the shorter vanity which would allow a larger space between it and the tub.

  • hobokenkitchen
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Today we got some painters tape and mapped a few bathroom layout options. The only one that seems to work comfortably is the original layout.

    The problem we're having is the width of the top of the tub which would be tough in a narrow bathroom and the placement of the toilet. We have it in front of the door so it's the first thing you see which isn't ideal, but on the other hand we prefer that to having it in front of the window so we would have to have the blinds shut whenever we have guests.

    Palimpsest - having mapped it out I think we agree that the shorter vanity is the way to go so as not to crowd the tub. I just hope a 60" is sufficient and doesn't feel tiny.

    Thanks for all the help and suggestions! I am still nervous about making this work. Please wish us luck!!

  • lee676
    11 years ago

    Funny, someone near me was selling a new Mariposa 6' for half the new price. It was the exact one I would have needed, but it had a small crack near the top that needed a repair and I didn't want to deal with that (the owner was given a replacement tub that wasn't defective). I'm told it was really comfortable though with the armrests and the slope at the back. I too was a bit concerned of it not being deep & a tight squeeze for 2, but most of the time the smaller space = less water used.

Sponsored
Cabido Design & Build
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars34 Reviews
DC & Montgomery County's Best in Full Service, Custom Home Remodeling