I have a shower over bath combo' which its plastic resin something? It's a old bungalow and pitifully small. The amount of times I have nearly slipped over getting out, or lost my balance with soap in my eyes/ or after having a glass of wine. hate hate it. I did see a shower room with a additional hand held device and a over head shower. I thought that good for the odd squirt your feet down. The next owners will probably rip it all out and start again any way when design ideas change.

We had our claw foot bath professionally restored as re surfaced over 20 years ago and I gold leafed the claw foot and shellacked it numerous times it looks fabulous the bath still looks as new today as it did 20 years ago, we looked for a professional re-surfacer of bathrooms to do it, I finished off the claw feet as mentioned, we bought the bath that was being used as a sheep dip on a farm so it was much worse than your bath, we live in Adelaide but I am sure there would be prfessionals in Melbourne, just google and then look for feedback of their work, good luck.

Hi How2Girl, I appreciate your follow up! The Reece document is good - thanks - I wish there was something concrete in the Standards though. Worth notiing is that a shower over the bath needs the same wall-sheeting details as if it was a shower base. Also wall framing in the bathroom needs to be done to AS 1684.2-2010 Residential timber-framed construction - Non-cyclonic areas (Which the James Hardie 'wet area design book' is based on) Very frustrating that the Australian Standards are not readily available - ie FREE- or at least, latest copies at local libraries. How are we meant to build to standards when they are inaccessible. Another factor in determining the overall quality of the Australian construction industry Also what I've found frustrating in this instance is that other trades in my small town are unwilling to agree that the work is of very poor quality - there is an unstated 'brotherhood' at work. So Im going to have to engage an independent Building Certifier, probably from out of town. Of course,the cost for this will come off the builder's fees on a pro-rata basis for below-par work

We are literally having the same debate. We have a 12 year old and 9 year old, house doesn't have an ensuite as such but dual living set up with one bathroom on the ground level and one on the first level. At this stage we are thinking no bath...will be interested to see what you end up deciding too1