Plenty of households in Sandy, from the established streets east of State Street to the neighborhoods climbing toward the bench below Little Cottonwood, have decided they are staying put. That decision changes the brief for a bathroom remodel. The shower stops being about style alone and starts being about entry height, footing, and whether it still works in fifteen years. A low-threshold shower with a curb you can step over easily suits most homes. A fully curbless entry, where the bathroom floor and the shower floor are continuous, is the version people picture, and it is achievable more often than they expect, though not in every house.
The difference between the two comes down to framing. A low curb can be built in almost any bathroom without touching the structure. A flush, curbless entry usually requires recessing the pan into the floor system or building the surrounding floor up to meet it, which is straightforward on a slab and more involved on an upper floor where joist direction and drain routing control what is possible. A linear drain set at the wall makes the slope work with a single plane, which looks cleaner and walks better. A contractor should tell you which version your house supports before you fall in love with a drawing.
This is the single most valuable thing you can do during a remodel, and almost nobody thinks of it until the walls are closed. While the framing is exposed, plywood or solid blocking gets installed behind the entire wet wall, along the shower entry, and beside the toilet. It adds very little to the work while the studs are open, and it means a grab bar can be mounted securely anywhere on those walls at any point in the future without opening tile. Ask for photographs of the blocking before the backer board goes on, and keep them. Ten years from now, nobody will remember where it went.
The same logic applies to the details that are easier to build in now than to retrofit. A comfort-height toilet, lever handles instead of knobs, a handheld shower on a slide bar so it works seated or standing, a bench sized for actual use rather than decoration, and brighter, better-distributed light than the single ceiling fixture most bathrooms were given. Floor tile in a smaller format with more grout lines gives better footing when wet. A tonal contrast between the floor and the wall helps the edge of the room read clearly, which quietly matters more as eyesight changes.
The worry we hear most is that an accessible bathroom will look like a clinic. It does not have to, and the good work in this category is invisible as accessibility. Grab bars are made now in the same finishes as faucets and towel bars, and in profiles that read as fittings rather than equipment. A shower bench in the same material as the walls looks intentional. A wide, clear doorway framed properly at rough-in simply reads as generous. Choose the finishes you would have chosen anyway, then make the underlying decisions about height, reach, footing, and light with the long view in mind.
The other advantage of doing this now is that you get to make calm decisions. Bathrooms modified after an injury are chosen quickly, under pressure, and often with whatever can be installed in a week. Planning the same changes while nothing is urgent means you can sequence the work around staying in the house, take your time with the details, compare options without a deadline pressing on you, and end up with a room you genuinely like looking at every day rather than one you had to accept. If you want to talk with contractors in Sandy who handle this kind of project thoughtfully, call 801-644-9000.
Often, yes. To get the shower floor flush with the bathroom floor, the pan generally has to be recessed into the floor system or the surrounding floor built up to meet it. On a concrete slab this is usually manageable. On an upper floor it depends on joist direction, joist depth, and where the drain can run. A low-threshold shower gets most of the benefit with far less structural work.
Yes, and that is exactly why blocking matters. If solid blocking goes in behind the tile during the remodel, a bar can be mounted securely later at whatever height suits the person using it, with no wall opened. Without blocking, later installation means finding studs that may not be where you need them, or opening finished tile. Install the blocking now even if you never install a bar.
Not if it is designed rather than assembled. Modern grab bars come in the same finishes as faucets and can double as towel bars. A tiled bench, a linear drain, a glass panel instead of a door, and a wide entry all read as current design choices. The features that improve safety, better lighting, secure footing, and easy reach, are the same ones that make any bathroom more comfortable to use.
A few details about the room and the house is all we need to start. Or call 801-644-9000.