I face a very similar dilemma due to plumbing and ventilation systems in the wall behind my vanity. Also, there is a pocket door in the wall to the immediate right of the vanity. To the left of the vanity is the toilet. My floating vanity is 36" wide and 24" deep. The bathroom is 6' x 10'2". I however have decided to use an overhead vanity fixture with a center projection of 4" - 5". I found it helpful to look outside of the options available in bathroom lighting for overhead sconces. That is, wall lights and sconces that may not be rated for damp areas. I do not know if this option will work for you, but it does increase the selection size. In my case, I may or may not need the additional lighting from an overhead sconce, but I have been told one can never have too much lighting around the vanity mirror and the key is to have enough lighting so that there are no shadows on the face. I have one overhead low-voltage can over the sink and another one a couple of feet before the vanity. I also have another wall light mounted beneath the floating for ambiance. I have another low-voltage can over the toilet and another one in front of the toilet. There are also two low-voltage cans over the tub/shower combination. The only other light source is a 5'6" x 12" sandblasted clerestory window above the tub/shower combination. The bathroom walls are 18" bands of off white limestone (crema europa) with 3/4" bands of brown granite (antique europa). Floor is antique europa. Ceiling is same limestone with a 6" border of labrador antique. Kelley kdockrey@adelphia.net

Breezy- I am glad to help. We have tons of natural light in our new house, which I only know because we don't have power yet. So we rely on the natural light when we are over there all the time. I went against what others have recommended and did both recessed and sconces on the vanity for two reasons- 1. I wanted really good light for makeup, etc. 2. The recessed cans can sometimes be really warm when I am getting dressed and drying my hair. For that task, I wanted sconces only so that I could turn off the recessed lights. 3. I wanted the recessed because I didn't want to be able to see the sconce lit up on the wall from our bed (if we were to leave it on during the night) Hope that helps. Your electrician should be able to help you too. I told them where (for kitchen and bath) I wanted to have recessed and they helped more than anyone else in measuring distances, etc.

Well, we settled on mounting the center of the fixture (the round part that mounts to the wall over the electrical box) at 63", which then puts the very top of the fixture at 70" and the center of the light source at around 67". I sure hope I made the right decision. The contractor/designer's suggestion was 5" taller than the 63". That just seemed too high for me. The electrician has set the electrical boxes and the piping for the wiring, but I'm still second guessing myself. Yikes!!!

Thanks for feedback- we have a tub in the guest bath on current main level. For the pop-up we can put a tub in the kids shared bath. They are getting to an age where they probably like standup shower like our current 3x5 but can do combo for family bath on resale if that is better for families to bathe younger kiddos down the road. I think it is a 50/50 mix in our area (NoVA/DC metro). The really small remodeled homes don't have them. The ones we may 'compete' against would be new builds which are larger square footage. So if no tub (which we are fine with) is to find a design for a really nice shower but feel airy and spacious in the room. If we go no tub, should we reduce space and widen walk in closet or do something with laundry closet? Or just make shower a little bigger - if shower at entrance would that be a wall or just go with frosted glass? Our master bath had entrance adjusted so DH could get his 'sitting space' and place a TV or something on a wall there (also to avoid door to door direct line Feng shui with opposite bedroom. Current laundry is in basement so we thought we should at least have a mini w/d upstairs. We are blowing out some walls on main level so don't want to lose storage space on main to place laundry there as a compromise option that had come up.