cat mom- while this is true of the borgs in general - Kohler doesn't really participate in the value engineering that pervades say HD's door hardware and lock offerings. A Kohler K-16230-4 Margaux faucet is the same whether you get it from Ferguson, the local plumbing supply or Home Depot. Now, if you see an item that looks similar or exactly the same yet has a different product # then you can bet the farm the quality has been driven out of it by the suits at the borg. The really crappy thing is that the depot's price on these items isn't really that much less than the quality item elsewhere. Do a value analysis and you'll usually discover that the depot is raping you in the long run. Sometimes they have the name changed slightly. Baldwin has a setup like this for the borgs: first is the "special" site for the borgs, looks great till you open up one of these offshore beauties and find pot metal crap. second site is the real deal Baldwin that's made quality kit for 60 years. http://www.baldwinhardware.com/ Very hard for the casual observer to tell the difference. Here is a link that might be useful: baldwins fake site

wowed, I agree with your response, and it's interesting to me. I would want at least sound, if not visual, separation, between a lavatory/dressing area and a bedroom. It's interesting to compare the bedroom/lavatory area/toilet and bath area layers to a palace set up: the anteroom, the throne room (no pun intended) and then private quarters. In the same way, access and function are layered. I think most users would agree this sort of layering is a good thing. Contrast this to the evolution of design of the kitchen/dining/family room area of a house. For me, sound separation of activities (eg., tv watching vs. a conversation in a dining room, or relaxing in the family room without the din of dish stacking) or visual separation (chatting with guests in the dining room while not worrying about how the busy food prep area looks) or even olfactory separation (reading a book in the family room while onions are sliced and sauteed in the kitchen). The grand, open flowing floorplan for these areas is popular, but for me, I prefer a little segregation, especially as the number of users and potential simultaneous uses goes up. Seems to me, as the average household size has shrunk and more people are living in a house of only 2 or 3 people, sure, the open floor plan can work. But for now at least, I want a little bit of separation of activities, and I like my "antiquated" floor plan, with separate kitchen, dining room, family room (tv) and living room (piano). A tv and piano in the same room would be a nuisance for us. So I guess on a more micro level, I'm looking to separate activities in the bathroom. But I agree, if in the process of pulling them apart and relocating them, I mix grooming and sleeping, well, yes, that would be a disastrous unintended consequence! responding to another post, I don't know why that link didn't work, here is the direct url: http://www.farrow-ball.com/Company/FBStyles.aspx?language=en-GB&style=5

Since my original post, I did buy the home, closed on the 29th, but that almost didn't happen - one of the main reasons was, tada, this bathroom! During the walkthrough the day before closing I came to find out that they had to replace the shower pan, which meant, they replaced the tiles in the shower, and with them being tiles from the 60s, not only did they not match, but as a repair, it was an AWFUL job! I was pissed and upset to say the least. I couldn't understand why the owners didn't offer me the option of a credit to do the bathroom over as I saw fit, instead of doing this on their own, it just made no sense. We finally got them to give us a credit and I'll be ripping out the entire bathroom. What they paid to have done in there was just a waste of money and almost cost them the sale of the house - and cost them more at the end with the credit given. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with this bathroom. I've taken off that gawd awful accordian door (Freecycle!) I'm looking at tiles, trying to find a 18" vanity base to free up some more floor space, probably put in bypass shower doors as I can't stand getting wet when I turn on the shower as it is now, and there's no light in the shower, so this will bring in natural light. I'm still not sure how to deal with the door. I haven't found a good door to put there. THe original door swong in, door handle on right when it was there. I'm still toying with the idea of a pocket door. I'm going to get an estimate on switching the toilet and vanity, still not sure how much of a difference it would make. Too many things and possible options. Want an elongated toilet - does anyone know who makes some really short toilets when it comes to floor space? Good source for 18" vanities? Vanity there now is 41" thinking about a 36" wide instead, will give a bit more room. So, that's my mini update on this bathroom. I've been almost 3 weeks doing non-stop cleaning. As clean as they people were/appeared, you have NO idea what I've found deep cleaning! This morning, I'm off to paint the closets in the master bathroom - they painted the bedroom, but didn't take the extra step to paint the interior of the 2 closets, so I have a tan bedroom and light green/blue closets!!!

duchamp, I checked my clippings, I didn't save it and the post is so old it's dropped off the bathroom forum. Are you looking for how to build a niche (my husband just built it to my specification for overall height and height from the floor between the studs in the wall) or just the inspiration photo? It wasn't a "how to," just a photo which I ultimately adapted because I couldn't get it to work for me as it was. That was a bit stressful initially because I wanted it to be just that way, but I realized I could make it my way. I had the general concept but I couldn't recall how the glass shelf was supported so that it wasn't obvious, that's why I wanted the picture; I wanted to do it "right." The inspiration photo's magazine rack was hmmm....made with painted strips of wood, more country I think and I knew that wasn't going to get made and found the Pottery Barn rack for a great price on eBay. It was just easier to pop the purchased rack in and I like the final result better. I purchased a tempered glass shelf cut to my dimensions online, I'm not sure if the inspiration photo used tempered glass but I thought it would be safer even though I don't have kids running around. When it first was installed all I could notice was how the greenish tint to the glass edge clashed with the green paint on the wall, I don't notice it anymore. We ended up supporting the shelf (because I never could figure it out from the picture) with small, square dowels painted to blend. Again, I had had a different thing in mind with hardware but I guess I was dreaming that that existed so we needed to adapt. It's funny how the project caused so much fuss at the time because I wanted perfect and with all the adaptations I thought I was going away from perfect but of course in the end, it's perfect!