IMO the whole thing is just plain silly this is a bad idea and should only be enjoyed in a picture. In your case even worse since you are not willing to do the work to get the look. First you need at least 1' all around the tub and unless that shower was enormous you probably do not have the space . The whole bathroom will need to be wet room and every time you shower you need to at least squeegee all the walls which BTW all need to be tile then you need to wipe down the tub that you didn't actually use.

It is not really clear what you are working with. Can you give us photos of the shower in a wide shot, and close up of your shower controls? Do you have just a single hand-held shower head? Or is there a wall shower head, too? Your control for the shower may be accessible through the back. Sometimes there is a closet behind a shower where you have (or can cut) access to the shower controls. If you do have to cut, they make neat access doors in many sizes you can install to keep that access. If it is, you can change it out for a thermostatic valve with multiple shower head choices and give you the ability to have more than one shower outlet, if one is all you have.

You are not going to find a tub filler that attaches to a shower hose. But you may be able to find a shower hose that allows you to remove the flow restrictor so that it can function as a tub filler. You can get hoses 6 ft long and in specialty shops, even longer, but will need to find a way to put a holder for the hand-held head so that water it hits the tub. And the shower controls will likely be out of reach, so you will be unable to add water to warm your bath.

If you are not on a slab foundation, you may find it easier to come up through the floor with a floor-mounted tub filler standard set-up. It takes more money, but won’t look jerry-rigged. Another option is to have pipes plumbed in the wall behind your tub to bring water to a wall-mounted tub filler. If you have an interior wall behind the tub, it will take only a plumber and a handyman to redo the drywall piece that needs removed to do the plumbing. They can do hole saw cuts through your tile for the faucet and handle for the tub filler, and since that wall will no longer receive shower spray (because the tub is in front of it), a good caulking may make up for drilling through the shower waterproofing.

Oh- and since the tub is going into a shower, your contractor will need a plan to put something under the tub to level it. Your water surface will be level, no matter how tilted the tub is, and may be too low on one side and slosh out on the other. The tub must be level to drain properly, too. A footed tub may work best, with the use of waterproof and crush-proof shims under the legs and lots of patience to make it dead level!

As to Pat’s concern, I agree that jerry-rigging a tub filler will not look too good, but her concern about the tub in shower layout has plenty of opinions on both sides. Here is a Houzz discussion on the issue with well over 300 opinions!

https://www.houzz.com/magazine/why-you-might-want-to-put-your-tub-in-the-shower-stsetivw-vs~3149263

Contact Rube Goldberg, he will know how to do this.

Thanks for the replies.

Firstly, @Patricia Colwell Consulting -- I hear your concerns, here, but all the same, this is a very large shower, as I stated, it was built for a woman who was disabled. I can easily fit a 57" wide tub into it, and fit the drain over the shower drain, or use a flexible connection to do so.

Secondly, it's not that I'm "not willing" to do the work. It is that I am on a budget, thanks, and I'm looking for ideas. That's all.

Thirdly, it's not the look. It's the configuration. I don't want to lose the ability to have a standing shower, and I want to add a tub. In reality, this will be better, as this shower currently leaks water onto the floor even with the curtain setup it currently has.

My consideration in keeping it a shower, was to install glass doors -- which I may still do, but I would rather have a tub. This won't turn the bathroom into a "wet room".

@Nancy in Mich -- thanks for the thoughts. A few things.

Yes, I am aware of going in through the back of the shower -- there is a very small broom closet behind this shower, in which the copper runs to feed the water.

The issue here is that all of that copper is already welded, and these are not your normal 1/2" screw-in connections. If they were, I would run splitters off of them, setup a freestanding filler faucet, and then keep the shower portion that is already in the wall.

But, I cannot do that, without cutting the pipe, and etc. That's not my fault, that's how the house came to me.

So in essence, yes, I get it. I realize that I am asking for something that doesn't exist in a retail product fashion. It seems silly to me that it doesn't, but, whatever.

And to clarify, this shower is a built-in, not something which can be done by cutting through drywall. If I decide to go harder on this, I have to remove the entire shower. Not into it at this time.

Anyway, thanks, I'll go looking

I should also note, I've already read that Houzz article about putting a tub into the shower -- I'm not actually a dummy, despite the fact it might seem that I am. I'm actually quite capable when it comes to working on my house, hence my being curious as to if anyone else on the planet had ever tried something like what I'd like to do.

And as to Rube Goldberg-ing it, yeah, well, there's a lot of Clawfoot setups out there that look like that ;)

I’ve lived many years in Germany and am familiar with all sorts of snazzy tub fillers that have clever attached handshowers, but can’t say I’ve ever seen the other way ’round.

I suspect the least stressful way to achieve this would be to just hire a plumber to cut into those copper pipes and attach the necessary diverter valve so you can have the head with a long hose as well as the existing fixed head — this still doesn’t really solve the issue of then having to fill your tub with a wiggly handheld showerhead, though. Hmm. Seems less than ideal?

(I’m also a regular bather, so I feel the pain of really wanting tub where there’s only shower.)

I'm no pro at all, but just thinking off the top of my head....for what it's worth (and it may not be worth anything)....maybe a set up kind of like this, except run the copper pipe (decorative factor here) on the outside of the tile where it shows, down the wall, then along the floor to the tub filler. Then you would need to affix the tub filler to the floor somehow so that it's stable.

Like I said, don't know if that would actually work.

Uptown Condo Wet Room Master Bathroom Remodel · More Info

can you post a picture??

everyone is trying to envision what you're talking about.

you said you have a big shower. where is the tub in relation to the shower?

does the tub have it's own drain?

If I understand correctly, The tub will be placed in the same spot, using the current drain?

And the tub will not have any faucet? you want to attach a longer hose line to the handheld in your shower, and extend that handheld to fill your tub?

is that right?

How about you save up the money to run a line through the wall (or the floor if you aren't on a slab) and just do a proper filler? Or, since you say you're cabable, run some PEX lines and do a wall mount filler, or a floor mount filler. Or are you worried about having to redo tile?

Also, a shower already makes the bathroom a "full bath," so no resale advantage to a tub, especially one that makes the shower difficult to use.

Brian, I agree that a picture could really help here. When you say the shower is s ”built-in,” I don’t understand what you mean. What is the material that the shower walls are built of? Tile, solid surface, even fibergass can be cut through. My copper pipes are also all welded, and plumbers can cut and weld new configurations. This can be done right. I hear you that you would prefer not to do it that way, to save money. Just be aware that any future buyers will notice a makeshift set-up and wonder where else things may have been ”re-muddled.” Tub fillers are designed to provide a fast fill of a lot of water. Hand-held shower heads are designed to provide as strong a flow as can be faked with as little water as possible. I question if one could fill a tub before the water turned cold. I am glad that you were able to search and read up on baths in showers. Most don’t bother to. I am sorry if you found it an insult to provide a link.