Yes, it will fit a bench. A standard alcove tub/shower gives you approximately 22 x 42 of "standing" room. Outside dimension of 34 x 66 , accounting for curb, will give you a floor 30 wide ( and I would limit the depth of a bench to 16 inches ) leaving 50 inches of floor. Plan to top that with a solid surface, ideally matching the shower curb. Do not tile the sit surface.

As far as aging in place? Even senior living facilities built in the eighties have similar dimensions, with a shower curtain. The issue well up the road, would be if you needed HELP with bathing. Nobody would argue that eliminating the tub wall height helps greatly, but.

Your best bet is to draw the existing bath at 1/2 inch scale and note all dimensions. Include adjacent areas.

Anyone who has ever cared for, watched over aging parents .............will assure you much more can be involved in their care, than bathing. Even in youth and good health, a broken ankle or leg will teach you MUCH.

Today, a luxury facility for the aged, would be a roll in shower and much more. . Convenience, universal design, ADA compliant......could still mean outside help to remain in place at home.

Post the existing space , pictures and DRAWING.

Your single best bet? An interior designer well versed in ADA, who will also counsel the selections that provide the look and feel you want in the bath. That person will have the other skilled trades at her finger tips as well. There's a lot more involved than a bench and vanity : )

IMO a bench should be remoaveable and certainl no bench in an ADA compliant shower which BTW needs to have no curb that a wheelchair can’t navigate over. If you want a bench get a teak one that folds up and you use it when you need it and that shower size will not be big enough to be ADA

And make sure there is enough blocking in the wall to hold the weight.

built in benches are a pain. how often does one really sit on the cold tile?? Or, slab of quartz or marble?

do the flip down, or just get a small teak bench to keep in there. not so cold on the tush either.

Wow! Jan, Patricia, Beverly, and Beth, thank you all so much for your insights and comments! This is exactly the kind of feedback that I was looking for!

@JAN MOYER I am not very good with scaled drawings, but I will come back with one and some more pictures. I appreciate the dimensions you provided as I hadn't considered how much room the actual curb takes up and the actual floor space calculations with a bench installed, and the suggestion to avoid putting tile on the bench.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting--I considered having a curbless shower, however, I'm just not on board with having a "wet room" at least not now--I guess I'm envisioning that I'll only need a walker and won't be in a wheelchair. The thing I most dislike about my current setup is that I have stubbed my toe on the nasty sliding door track (around 17" high) on the bathtub a few times when getting into the shower/tub. You raised a good point about having a bench that is removable--another good idea. I have also considered having a floating vanity, too, but I keep going back and forth on that one from a storage, aesthetics, and overall style consideration point of view. I have a second bathroom with a traditional vanity and tub/shower combination.

@BeverlyFLADeziner: I think your vision squares up with what my husband has asked me to consider--that is, the folding teak bench. It does make sense to fold it up when not in use. Thank you for pointing out the blocking that is needed for it too, which makes sense. On a separate note, I know that I have to figure out where to put some grab bars. I have been visualizing two of them: I've seen shower systems that incorporate the grab bar with a handheld shower, so they don't even look like grab bars--I love that solution because I don't want the room to look like a nursing home. Thank you for including the folding bench photos.

@Beth H. : I really don't know how much the bench would be used, however, I thought it would be used quite a bit if a second hand-held shower is close by and especially for shaving one's legs. But, yes, I can imagine that tile or a slab could be very hard and cold on the rear end, so the point is well-taken.

Lots of considerations here, but it's definitely better to think about them before making costly mistakes!

karena, when I redid my shower I went very large (I wanted the one wall for orchids and plants).

I had ordered this bench for the shower, but once it arrived I realized it was too large.

shower is about 44" wide, I believe. over 7' long

Now that I've used the shower over 3 years, I would have never even used it. I think my stepson used it a few times when he broke his foot.

I put it here for a spell, but eventually it was banished out back and I put in a little floating make-up area here.

jan, set your tushie down on a marble/quartz surface! it's cold. of course you could throw down a towel, or mat, or warm it up w/the hot water spray. i'm just saying, if you walk in to take a shower and sit down on the bench, it's going to be cold.

unless you're a semi invalid, there's no need to sit down while showering.

who wants to bend down to clean under this one??? not me.

this is simple. take outside to dry out once a month. or set it outside if you're not using it. (or to clean)

I keep my bedroom TEMP like a meat locker, so you probably can't go by ME: )

lol. oh I hear ya on that one. the colder the better.

To cut costs I skipped a built in bench but do use a teak bench in my shower. My DH just had double knee replacement and needed to bring his walker in the shower for a week it would have been tight ( our shower is only 60 inches long) if we had done a permanent bench. Also when he was done with the walker a portable bench proved even more handy for he could place it in more convenient spots and was not confined to just the hand held shower option.

I love my driftwood inspired teak bench.

@roarah thank you! This is very helpful information! Interestingly enough, I was thinking of putting a 12 x 24 Carrara look alike marble field tile in the shower. Does the teak bench come painted in white? I like the looks of the white portable bench much better than the natural teak color.

Painted surfaces in the shower are slippery.. plus in a shower the paint can peel off over time.. the important features would be ..light weight.. small enough to move aside easily and not tip over...but big enough to sit in comfortably,.

Personally .. I prefer built-in...avoiding any instability... and great for leg shaving and setting down the products you are using at the time

OK, everyone, thanks for hanging in there with me. Doing a floor plan was a great idea, as the actual room (length) of the bathroom is slighter larger than I thought—it’s actually 10 1/2’ long. I hope you can see the floor plan well enough. The scale is 1-inch = 1 foot.

I am also adding a few more pictures of the existing bathroom.

It is not painted but stained with an opaque stain. It has held up very well with less wear than my older “natural”red stained teak bench did. Here is a link to the brand I have. Not at all slippery. Although I just turned fifty, I had a stroke two years ago and have extensive right side damage and vertigo and use this bench without issue. https://www.wayfair.com/CoastalVogue--30-W-Teak-Shower-Bench-GR155-L7325-K~CSTV1050.html?refid=GX444243424512-CSTV1050_52817325&device=m&ptid=1029384449441&network=g&targetid=pla-1029384449441&channel=GooglePLA&ireid=130338332&fdid=1817&PiID%5B%5D=52817325&gclid=CjwKCAiAlNf-BRB_EiwA2osbxWyfYLwPHWPKBfxbwcF89TJ264_vT1HL0Lm1GCWKcNa-f1OG5VRNahoCj68QAvD_BwE

Thank you so much for the kind information and the link @roarah! I am pretty healthy at 66, but sometimes my left knee gives me some trouble.

On your plan....The first thing you see when you open the door is the toilet....i would switch the toilet and the vanity locations

Install a toe-holder on the wall about 24" off the floor for leg shaving and abandon the bench please.

https://www.houzz.com/magazine/12-must-haves-for-aging-in-place-stsetivw-vs~61443562

@btydrv Interesting you should mention that. At one point, I considered taking another 31 inches from the master bedroom closet, moving the shower to where the toilet is now and enlarging it 42" x 66". Then, I would have room for a double vanity.

But, the toilet was directly across from the door, which both DH and I disliked immensely. If I put the vanity on the wall with the window, I wouldn't have much room for a mirror above it--I think it would look rather choppy. Do I then make modifications to the window as well? I'm not sure how that would look and the heating vent would most likely need to move (it's under the window). I also like having the closet space.

@thinkdesignlive thank you for the link to the Houzz article. I had not seen that one! We live in the San Francisco bay area, so it's pretty warm most of the time, so I'm not sure that heated tile is necessary, but it might be a nice feature since everything would be ripped up on the floor anyways. I will consider doing the curbless shower again. This also means a floating vanity.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC: that's a great idea--at least I would have a place to put my leg up and shave :-). I still do like the bench for stability reasons as mentioned by btydrv.

I have a built-in bench in my cabin shower, and I find it a real pain. it is just a tich too far from the shower nozzle so when I do need to sit, it is cold, then I end up having to stand to rinse off thoroughly anyway

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In my master I have a foldable stool. It is sturdy, and I like to be able to position it according to whether I want to use the rainshower or the handlehead one to wash. It is easy to tuck it out of the way as well.
I would highly recommend installing a grab bar as well for the person using the stool, or even someone standing in the shower who might wobble a bit.

Jan, perhaps I didn't describe it well. The bench itself is not cold, but it is not directly under the water, therefore if a person needs to use the bench, the back of the person gets cold. With a moveable stool, you can swivel or position it under a rainshower so the person never experiences the cooling water on their wet skin, plus the stool can be moved out of the way if someone doesn't want it.

Thanks, Marigold for sharing your experiences. I see that you also have a curbless shower and one stationary piece of glass. That’s another question about what kind of enclosure to use.

Did you convert from a bathtub to a walk-in shower? What are the dimensions of your shower and where is the handheld shower piece located? Is it on a sliding bar with the rainhead controls?

@btydrv—just to clarify the toilet in my drawing is the current layout of my bathroom. It is pretty costly to move the toilet.

The master bedroom and bathroom were added on in the 1980s to the original 1948 ranch. I don’t see a lot of gain by moving the vanity to the opposite wall as there would be scant space for a mirror above the vanity and it would look off-balance. I do want the sink to be in the center with a decent size mirror.

I LOVE the bench in my shower and you have room for one. Just last week I threw my back out and it was so much easier putting my foot on the bench to wash. My husband has had 2 ACL reconstructions (he plays soccer) and used the bench to sit while showering with the handheld. Since we have radiant heat in the bathroom, we ran heating under the seat and under the shower floor. Very nice in the cold New England winters. However, you can just put a towel down to sit on. Once the hot water is going, it's not cold. I actually prefer a fixed bench. I don't want to clean the teak ones and always fear the ones bolted to the wall could detach.

Thank you, Design Girl! I totally understand how nice the radiant heat would be nice especially for those cold New England winters! I don't really care for the aesthetics of having a foldable teak bench. Good to know about how helpful the bench is in the case of injuries!

Our setup was in a new build, so we weren't limited in space. The shower is 6' long, and there is a tub at the end of it, so prob a different configuration

that you would have. The handheld shower is on the bar as shown, while the rainhead comes out if the ceiling above.

Oh, I see, Marigold. The shower is a lot bigger than I would have imagined from the initial picture. Lucky that you have both an accessible shower and a bathtub! I am going to miss the bathtub because I do like taking baths a lot.