"If you want the style with a separate hot and cold knobs, you lose the pressure balanced safety feature (anti-scald when with water pressure fluctuations - toilet flush for example)." No, you don't. Several of the dealers specializing in vintage bathrooms sell retrofit pressure-balance kits that go right in the wall and work with just about any plumbing brand so that older bathrooms can be brought up to code without completely destroying their old plumbing, but they work just fine with new plumbing too. Signature Hardware is one dealer, but I know there are others. If you're not using chrome or brass for the shower hardware, the chrome cover can be painted; scuff-sand with fine sandpaper, prime with a good metal primer, and paint to the desired color. Spray paint made for metal works nicely. Allow to cure for several days to a couple of weeks before installation, and don't use harsh cleaners or abrasives on the cover. It may peel several years down the road, just strip off the old paint and repaint it. An easy way to remove paint from hardware is to line your crock-pot with one of those heatproof baggies they're making for that purpose nowadays and put some hot water in it with a few tablespoons of baking soda or fabric softener, or a good squirt of dish soap. Toss the cover in there and let it cook along on low overnight. In the morning the paint will peel right off (let it cool first!). Scrub off any remaining traces with one of those green scrubbies and rinse well. Allow to dry thoroughly before repainting. If you don't have a crock-pot and have a whole bunch of hardware to strip because previous owners of your house were idiots and painted right over it, may their armpits be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels, you can usually get one for $2-3 at a Goodwill, or very basic ones are normally about $10 at KMart sorts of places. (If you have a crock-pot dedicated to this purpose you don't need to use the baggie thing. I'll be getting one, since every! single! freakin! door! in this house - and this being an old house, every room has at least two LOL - has two hinges, two doorknobs, two keyhole escutcheons, and a mortise lock to strip of umpty-ump layers of paint.) If you don't have a crock-pot and you just have the one thing to strip, try putting the aforementioned ingredients in a pot, bringing them to a boil, adding the hardware, covering the pot and setting it aside overnight. I hear this may not work quite as well as the crock-pot but it does work.

The hand towels in my guest bathroom / powder room get very wet. I think my teen son uses them to wash his face. I plan to remodel my son's bathroom next year. The first picture below is of my remodeled guest bathroom. In this room, the toilet is next to the vanity, so side of vanity was obvious place to hang TP holder, not a towel. Contractor was reluctant to hang the towel bar on the wall because the towels cover the electrical outlet. In my master bathroom, I have no towel bars, so hand towels sit on the counter. The layout in my son's room is more like the "By the Bay" Houzz photo above, there will be space for a towel bar on either the right-side side of the vanity or on the wall to the left (as in the "Art House" Houzz photo). But ... I'm thinking about keeping a medicine cabinet on the wall, so would be crowded to add a towel bar here, as in second photo below, taken at an open house in my area.

drips down the tower wall, drips across the floor, or a folded towel next to each sink. or non symmetric, with it on the wall for the left sink, on the wall to the right of the mirror on the right sink. if you go with towel rings or hooks (rather than a bar) you have to realize they get attached quite high for the towel not to drag on the counter.

Check out Ginger brand towel bars. They are excellent quality, far superior than the local HD store. I have the Ginger surface collection which are modern. I got them at plumbtile online store at huge savings. I used two 32” towel bars stacked in a large master bath. Each 32” bar holds a bath sheet towel open flat to dry. Ginger has lovely traditional bars too. Celebrity cruise ships uses this brand in their ships. That’s where I saw them and had to have them. 😎