Considering updating your bathtub but not sure where to start? The problem with most lists of bathtub ideas, including the earlier version of this one, is that they put a $30 cushion and a $5,000 layout change side by side as though they were comparable decisions.
So every idea below carries a cost range, an effort level and a DIY-or-professional call. From modern freestanding tubs to compact models designed for small spaces, there are plenty of bathtub options for limited areas, and before diving into styles and materials it is worth understanding the factors to consider for a tub purchase. Think about your bathroom layout, plumbing and your family's needs, and the shortlist gets much shorter.
We are Badeloft and we make stone resin tubs, so idea 16 is one we have an interest in. The other 18 we do not sell, which is roughly the right ratio for a list like this.
One item on this list needs a warning rather than an estimate. Refinishing a tub yourself is the cheap-looking option that is genuinely hazardous, and the section on it says why.
What can you actually do for your budget
All 19 upgrades, filtered to the ones that fit your money, your problem and your appetite for doing it yourself.
All 19, by What They Cost
Ranges are typical US figures and estimates, not quotes. Labour rates and the state of your existing plumbing move them more than the product choice does.
| Upgrade | Typical cost | Who does it | Fixes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cushion or neck pillow | $20 to $80 | You | Comfort |
| Ambient lighting | $30 to $500 | You, or an electrician if hardwired | Mood, dated look |
| Bright wallpaper or art | $40 to $200 | You | The room |
| Added storage | $40 to $600 | You | Clutter |
| Bluetooth or wireless features | $40 to $500 | You, unless it is wired | The experience |
| Walk-in features: rails, seat, steps | $50 to $600 | Either | Access |
| Update the mirrors | $50 to $600 | You | Dated look |
| Wood accents | $60 to $600 | You | The room |
| Faucet upgrade | $150 to $800 plus fitting | Either | Dated look |
| Steps or a second entry point | $200 to $1,500 | Either | Access |
| Entertainment or sound | $200 to $2,000 | Professional | The experience |
| Refinish or reglaze | $350 to $800 professionally | Professional. See the safety section | Damaged surface |
| Shower combination | $800 to $3,000 | Professional | Practicality |
| Stone tile surround or plinth | $800 to $4,000 | Professional | The room |
| Whirlpool jets retrofit | $1,000 to $3,500 | Professional | Comfort |
| A deeper soaker tub | $1,500 to $6,000 | Professional | Comfort |
| A better material: new tub | $1,500 to $6,000 and up | Professional | Everything |
| Larger window | $2,000 to $8,000 | Professional, plus a permit | The room |
| Open-concept layout | $5,000 and up | Professional, plus a permit | A cramped room |
Two things that table makes obvious and a numbered list hides. The cheap end is almost all about the room rather than the tub, and it works: lighting, a mirror and something to put your drink on change a bath more than most people expect. And the expensive end is mostly one decision, which is whether you are replacing the tub. Everything above $1,500 is a version of that.
The Cheap End, Under $600
1. Cushions and neck pillows
The least glamorous item here and the one with the best ratio of comfort to cost. A bath pillow makes a hard-backed tub usable for a long soak. They need replacing periodically because they live in water, and that is the whole downside. A bath seat also adds grip and stability, which matters for anyone unsteady.
2. Ambient lighting
Ambient lighting makes a bathing area feel calmer, and it is the single cheapest way to make a bathroom feel expensive. Touch or voice control adds convenience, and pairing lighting with sound turns a bath into something you plan rather than something you do.
Plug-in and battery options need no electrician. Anything hardwired near a tub does, because there are clearance rules about how close a fitting can be to water, and they are not optional.
3. Bright wallpaper and art
The surrounds of a tub matter as much as the tub, because what you look at while bathing is most of the experience. Lift the room with wallpaper or art rather than staring at a blank wall. Use something rated for a bathroom, or humidity will lift the edges within a year.
4. Added storage
Storage is always short in a bathroom. A caddy or a tray covers the basics for very little. Built-in shelving, a niche or hidden storage along the tub base is the more expensive version and worth it if the room allows. This is the most-missed thing on a freestanding tub, which has no ledge at all.
5. Bluetooth and wireless features
Speakers, smart lighting and app-controlled accessories are portable, cheap and genuinely pleasant. Wired versions, including app-controlled faucets and fills that let you start running a bath on the way home, are an electrical and plumbing job rather than a purchase.
6. Walk-in features without a walk-in tub
A full walk-in tub is a large project. Many of its benefits are available separately: a padded seat, hand rails, a non-slip mat and a step. That gets you meaningful safety on a tub you already like.
One caveat. A fixed grab bar has to bolt into solid backing, which means blocking between the studs, and a bar screwed into plasterboard alone will eventually pull out under load. If access is already difficult rather than merely awkward, rails and a seat help but they do not change the height of the rim, and a walk-in bathtub or a curbless shower is the real answer.
7. Update the mirrors
A larger mirror makes the whole room read bigger and makes the tub look more considered, which is a lot of return for a low spend. Combine it with ambient and direct lighting and the space reads deliberate rather than default.
8. Natural wood accents
Wood brings warmth and a rustic note that contrasts well with a modern tub. A caddy, a stool, a shelf. It has to be properly sealed for a wet room, and it will deteriorate if it is not, so buy the ones made for bathrooms rather than repurposing furniture.
The Middle, $150 to $2,000
9. Faucet upgrades
The highest-impact change per dollar on most tubs. A taller or longer spout, better flow control, or simply a finish that is not the one from 2006. A direct swap in the same mounting configuration is straightforward. Changing from deck-mount to wall-mount or floor-mount is not, because it moves the plumbing.
10. Steps and additional entry points
Useful on a deep tub, and worth doing properly. A step has to be genuinely non-slip and genuinely solid, or it makes access worse rather than better by giving someone something to trust that moves. Natural stone matching the surround looks intentional rather than medical.
11. Entertainment and sound
A portable speaker is cheap and perfectly good. A screen or in-wall audio near a tub is an electrical job with the same clearance requirements as lighting, and it belongs in a planned renovation rather than a weekend.
12. Refinish or reglaze the tub
If the tub is structurally sound and the surface has gone dull, stained or scratched, refinishing applies a new coating over the existing one. On enamelled cast iron it is often the economically obvious call: the tub will outlive the house, only the enamel has aged, and replacing it means getting a very heavy object out of a finished bathroom.
It will not fix a crack. A crack is structural and moves every time the tub is loaded, so a coating over it splits along the same line within months. Our guide to why bathtubs crack covers that case.
Read this before buying a DIY refinishing kit.
Reglazing and painting a tub are the same job, and an earlier version of this page described it as "very easy". That was wrong, and it is the one correction on this page that matters.
The coating is not the dangerous step. The stripping and etching step is. Many bathtub stripping agents have been based on methylene chloride, and the CDC and NIOSH report that at least 14 workers have died since 2000 from methylene chloride stripping agents used in bathtub refinishing. OSHA has issued a hazard alert specifically titled for bathtub refinishers, and Oregon OSHA's summary is blunt: severe overexposure can kill you.
Those were professionals, working in ventilated commercial settings, doing the job for a living. Not a homeowner in a bathroom with the door shut.
What follows from that:
- Do not use a methylene chloride based stripper in a home bathroom. Published guidance to professional refinishers is to avoid these products altogether.
- A dust mask does nothing against vapour, and an ordinary cartridge respirator is not considered adequate for this exposure.
- Read the safety data sheet for the specific product before buying it, rather than the copy on the box.
- If a kit requires a chemical stripping stage, that is the stage to hand to someone equipped for it.
A professional refinish runs a few hundred dollars against a few tens for a kit. The difference buys extraction equipment you do not own and a job you do not have to redo, which is a fair trade before the safety question even comes up. This is not a reason to rule refinishing out. It is a reason not to do the stripping yourself.
Should you refinish that tub, and should you do it yourself
Refinishing is often the right call economically. The stripping stage is the part that has killed people, so this check takes it seriously.
13. Add a shower
Adding a shower to a bathtub is a visual upgrade and a practical one, since showers suit daily use and a bath uses far more water. You can also expand into a walk-in shower and place the tub inside it, which gives each function its own space. Whether that is worth doing depends partly on resale, and our guide to bathtubs versus showers and resale value covers it.
One warning: a shower over a freestanding tub needs a wrap-around curtain or screen, which undoes the reason you bought the tub. If one fixture has to do both jobs, buy the fixture designed for that.
14. Stone tile surround or plinth
Stone tile complements any tub type and gives you options. It works as a wall treatment, or as a built foundation for a drop-in tub, and that foundation can double as storage or carry lighting and speakers. It changes the setting rather than the tub, which is often the cheaper way to change how the tub reads.
15. Whirlpool jets, retrofitted
This one is genuinely possible in place, which surprises people. Retrofit kits exist and professional in-place conversions are routinely done in about a day without removing the tub.
Two conditions decide whether it is possible in your bathroom, and the earlier version of this page mentioned neither.
- Physical access behind or beneath the tub is required, to fit the pump, the air blower and the plumbing runs. With no access panel and no accessible wall, this is not a retrofit.
- A dedicated GFCI-protected circuit is required for the pump.
Check both before you price it. And the jets need cleaning on a schedule to prevent bacterial growth in the lines, which is the part owners of jetted tubs complain about most.
The Big End, $1,500 and Up
16. A better material
Better materials give you both a better-looking tub and a better bath. Stone resin, copper and cast iron all hold heat considerably longer than acrylic or enamelled steel, and that is the difference between a bath that stays warm for a long soak and one that cools while you are in it. They are also more durable and need less maintenance.
A note on what is realistic. Solid granite and solid marble tubs exist, and they are rare, extremely heavy and priced accordingly, so they are not a like-for-like alternative to the materials above. Our guide to bathtub materials compares the ones you can actually buy, and this is the point where badeloft has an obvious interest, so treat our enthusiasm about stone resin accordingly.
17. A deeper soaker tub
Soaker tubs are built for full immersion, which is better for joints and muscles and keeps your body at the water temperature rather than half in the air. If you want the full benefit of a bath, depth is the upgrade you notice most.
Check usable depth rather than the overall height on the spec sheet, because the number that matters is how deep the water can be below the overflow, not how tall the tub is.
18. A larger window
Windows amplify a bathroom, give you something to look at, and help ventilate the room when nobody is bathing. Enlarging one is structural work on an exterior wall, which means permits and inspection, and it only makes sense inside a bigger project.
19. An open-concept layout
If the bathroom feels cramped, opening it up means removing shelving, cabinets and vanities and relocating them, prioritising clear space around the tub.
Worth being honest about the scale. This usually means relocating the toilet, which means the soil stack, which means permits and inspection and a bathroom out of use for a while. It is a remodel rather than an upgrade, and it is on this list only because it is sometimes the right answer for a room that will never work otherwise. If replacement is where you are heading, our guide to removing and replacing a bathtub is the next step, and whatever you fit, the joint around it needs sealing properly with the right caulk or sealant.
Upgrade or Replace?
The decision underneath this whole list, and the one worth making before you spend anything.
| If this is true | Then |
|---|---|
| The tub is sound and you just dislike the look | Upgrade. Faucet, lighting, mirror, surround. Cheapest route to a bathroom you like |
| The surface has failed but the tub is solid, especially cast iron | Refinish, professionally. The tub is worth saving |
| It is cracked, or it flexes when you stand in it | Replace. A coating will not hold on a moving substrate |
| It is the wrong shape or too shallow to enjoy | Replace. No accessory fixes the wrong tub |
| Getting in and out is genuinely difficult | Replace, with a walk-in tub or a curbless shower |
| You rent | Upgrade only, and only the reversible things. Everything permanent belongs to someone else |
Why Upgrade at All
A better-looking room
A bathroom that looks finished feels more relaxing to be in, and bathing is supposed to be relaxing. Lighting and colour do most of that work, and they are at the cheap end of the list.
A better bath
This is the one with substance behind it. Better materials hold heat longer, so you stay comfortable longer, and greater depth means full immersion instead of a compromise. Those are real, physical differences rather than matters of taste.
Resale value, with a caveat
An attractive bathroom helps a sale, and bathrooms are one of the rooms buyers look at hardest. We are not going to attach a percentage to that, because the honest position is that returns on bathroom work vary enormously by market, by how dated the rest of the house is, and by what you spent. Our guide to bathtubs versus showers and resale value covers what is actually known, and a page that quotes you a confident figure for your market is guessing. What is reliable: a tub in visibly poor condition costs you more at sale than a modest one in good condition.
Common Questions
What is the cheapest way to upgrade a bathtub
Under $100, a bath pillow, a caddy, better lighting and something on the wall to look at. None of it touches the tub, and together it changes the experience more than most people expect.
Can you paint a bathtub yourself
Painting, reglazing and refinishing are the same job. Kits exist, and the stripping stage involved has documented fatalities behind it among professionals doing it in ventilated commercial settings. Get the stripping done professionally, or choose a system that does not need chemical stripping.
How long does a refinished tub last
Several years with reasonable care, and the honest range is wide because it depends on the prep, the substrate and what you clean it with. Abrasive cleaners shorten it considerably and usually void the warranty.
Can you add jets to an existing tub
Yes, if there is physical access behind or beneath the tub for the pump and plumbing, and a dedicated GFCI circuit available. Without both, it is not a retrofit.
Is it cheaper to refinish or replace a bathtub
Refinishing is cheaper in almost every case, typically a few hundred dollars against $1,500 and up installed. The exception is a cheap acrylic tub, where the gap narrows enough that replacing it may make more sense, particularly if the tub flexes.
What upgrade makes the biggest difference for the money
A faucet, if the tub is sound. It is the part you touch, it is the part that dates a bathroom fastest, and a direct swap is within reach of most people for a few hundred dollars.
Where to Start
Work out whether you are upgrading or replacing first, because it changes everything else. If the tub is sound, spend at the cheap end on the room around it before you spend at the expensive end on the tub. If it is not sound, no accessory will fix that, and the money is better put toward the replacement.
And if replacement is the answer, our stone resin freestanding tubs are where we would point you, with our guide to the benefits of a freestanding bathtub and our guide to what tubs cost for the numbers.