In Japan, the “bathroom” has exactly this in it - a bathtub and its paraphenalia. The bathtub is the only thing in the room because it has to overflow, hence there is also always a drain in the floor to deal with the water. Why must it overflow? Simply because when you get in, your body displaces some of the water which then spills over the side - not always, since you can get quite good at filling it to just the right level to reach the edge with you in it, but there has to be the possibility of overflow.
The tub can be about the same size as the standard American tub, but is always much deeper. It is filled with nice, hot water, and many of the tubs have a mechanism to circulate the water and keep it at temp - hence, no bubble baths here! The bubbles would gum up the works. In fact, no soap at all in the Japanese bath. All washing takes place sitting on a little stool by the bath, pouring water from the bath over yourself with a special dipper, or nowdays getting that water from a separate faucet, or even showering - but the point is, the washing is not done in the tub. The bath itself is for soaking and relaxing once you are clean. This is important, because families share the same bath water, sometimes even bathing together. But talk about relaxing! You feel mellow, like putty, when you’re finished. And clean - you never feel so clean as when you emerge from a Japanese bath. In cold weather, the bath also helps warm up the body right before you dive into bed - uh, make that futon - to conserve the warmth.
Now, a word about sharing the bath water for those of you who are grossed out by this concept. It turns out that our bodies were designed in such a way that sluffed off skin cells and hair and other assorted yucky stuff float on top of the water, so if you were to encounter these kinds of gross things when it was your turn to use the bath, you simply add enough hot water to make the bath overflow, and your water becomes quite clear again. The downside of this procedure is, when you are finally ready to get in, since the water is now up to the very edge of the tub, the huge amount of water that you will displace along with the great whooshing sound it makes as it leaves the tub combine to make you feel that you are really quite fat!
When I was a child I used to wonder how we got clean in the American bath. After I was finished the water was always covered with a soapy scum that clung to me as I stood up. My mother explained that the soap scum went into the towel, which it did, more or less. But the Japanese bath completely eliminates this problem, and throws in relaxation to boot!
