"they are not huge nor are they that heavy" The glass is custom 1/2" thick glass 5 1/2 ft tall sitting on top of a 2ft high tub wall. Each pane is well over 100lbs, there are 3 panes across (pic attached). If a single pane is on the floor and you've got 2 guys prepped to lift it, i guess it's not that heavy. If you're a kid taking a shower and a 100+ pound pane whose top height is 7 1/2 ft from the floor comes down on you, that's a different story. Edit: i wanna say it's actually closer to 200 lbs per pane because i have glass in my other shower too, and it is much lighter than the glass in this shower.

I hear you on wanting to avoid shower glass! Here's an idea ... Have you considered making the walk-out a few inches narrower in order to give more space to the shower area? Our shower doors have always been around 2' wide. The door to our toilet room is also 2' wide. I think that's ok for a short distance. Unless you plan to towel off in the walk-out area, I would think a 2' wide walk-out would be fine, and 3'6" is a nice width for the shower portion.

I love the casual comfort of your space, recognizing all the planning it took to achieve that feel! The wainscotting, soapstone, and hex tile floor make that happen for me, as do all the personal touches like the picture shelves and your lovely barnyard art. I love the thoughtful touches like the med cab placement, the shower' s window, and the foot-rest shelf in the shower - which I may be stealing! And saving the chute, even though that meant re-routing it, is just another example of the care and you took to get it right. I have a possible solution to the hand towel dilemma. Remember how farm kitchens often have those three-fingered towel holders under the sink to hold kitchen towels as they dry? The ones where the three rods come out from a center hinge and can be rotated into any position from all lined up together when not in use to spread far apart so that towels on them can dry? Ginger makes them now in two-rod style in nice finishes for the bath. 16" long. It would really match your farmhouse feel. Where to place it is your problem, you are thinking. I say, put it on the wall just in front of the vanity. You often step away from a sink when done, so the towel will be handy. Rings bunch up the towel and it takes longer to dry. Either this Ginger 0322-16 or any straight towel bar in a 12" or 16" size works, height-wise. Because I am on my Kindle and lost an entire post yesterday by touching somewhere on the screen on accident, I am going to post now, then try to link to the Ginger bar in another post. PS: I love the the violet wall color!

There's a lot of "stuff" out there masquerading as "antique" when in reality is's just used. There is no harm at all in refinishing stuff that was machine made in an era when machines made cheap furniture. Think 3 or 4 times about refinishing anything hand made; but remember that a lot of stuff made in the 1800's has already been stripped and refinished, and there is no harm in redoing. But to paint anything that was not originally meant to be painted is just wrong, and frankly looks so "newly married, very young, redoing stuff from mom's attic"....and to paint anything made out of "furniture wood"...oak, maple, walnut, Honduran mahogany, cherry and old growth pine is criminal. I stripped a painted walnut table made as a shop project, slapped on 3 coats of polyurethane and sent it to college to live in the Delt house and survive beer, coffee and who knows what else. After 4 years ( well 4 1/2 years!) it came home to live in an apartment, eventually the family room of the first house and eventually go back to college with another generation....I don't know where it is now, but I suspect it's still in use somewhere. Don't knock a shop project unless it's made of plywood! And stripping paint, whether you sand or not always destroys any patina a piece may have had....and patina is not discolorations from misuse ( although that can contribute), but the fine lines and silky texture a piece gets with long use....and a stripped bare piece has no "patina" only signs of use....which mostly I find worth maintaining.