neighbors had their old claw foot tub professionally refinished about a year ago and it looks like crap. it always showed brushstrokes (arent the new finished sprayed on ?). I agree with Kashka kat - try to find something that works with that odd color. OR go buy new ... might be worth the $$ and fewer headaches. IF you decide to try to work the existing fixtures in, DO get rid of the wood toilet seat and the terra cotta (?) floor - they are making the tan of the porcelain look really really bad. Try a white seat and maybe incorporate that clay-pink color into the paint in the room. It may look good with navy blue walls. If you want dramatic Deco, look at old Art deco prints till you find one that uses that clay pink color and use the other colors from the print in the room..

Thanks guys! This is the clawfoot tub I am considering: http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/atq/5280827575.html. It is pretty - look at those legs! I would paint the outside a different color though. And if I went drop in, it would probably look a lot like the one in JLC's last picture -- in fact, that picture basically encompasses the whole look I am going for - wainscoting, the closed in shower, the little mosaic tile on the floor. So thanks for that picture! I'm still torn on the tub issue - JLC's post had convinced me that I want drop in (especially the part about it being easier to get in as you age) but amberm is swaying me back again with the prettiness factor. When I look at my inspiration pics, there's a pretty even split between drop-in and clawfoot. One other factor that I didn't mention is that we currently have a laundry chute built into the side of the tub deck -- in my original picture, you can see the hinges where it opens near the floor -- the front of the tub deck pulls open and I can toss laundry down into the laundry room. This is an awesome feature. If I go with a drop in, I will keep the chute where it is (well, it will move back a few inches with the rest of the deck but that will actually make it fall in a better spot in the laundry room so that is fine). But if I go with a clawfoot, I am either going to have to put a trap door in the floor or build some kind of cabinet...and since it would look odd to have either of those right in the middle of the room, I will have to move the whole laundry chute back under the center of the window, which drops the laundry in a less convenient but still workable spot in the laundry room. But then I have to figure out if I want a trap door in the floor or to build some kind of little cabinet or flip out wall thing to serve as the door to the laundry chute -- I'm a little nervous about just making a trap door because it seems dangerous if someone accidentally left it open. So if I went with a clawfoot, I would probably build some kind of cabinet that ran from the edge of the window back to the corner -- the full top of it could server as a ledge for plants and holding stuff you'd want while in the tub while the part that is exposed (not behind the tub) could open for the laundry chute. But this is seeming very complicated and hard to visualize vs. just replicating what we basically have now....and have I mentioned that I'm bad at visualizing?!? I guess it would look something like the way the ledge runs in JLC's Charleston Beach Cottage picture....but looking at that pic, I can't imagine how they are going to get back there to clean the floor under there and I'm worried about having the same problem. To address the counter space concerns, the vanity width is just shy of 80". The current plan is to have a neighbor custom-build my cabinets (that's what he does for a living), so I was going to go with 2 29" sink base cabinets and a 20" drawer unit in the middle. I am also planning a recessed shaker-style built-in medicine cabinet unit that should give me a ton of storage for the stuff that is currently sitting on the counter. So hopefully I wouldn't need a bunch of counter space. I envision it looking something like this: I want it to run the full width of the vanity area. I think I worked out the math and it should be doable and line up with the sinks if I use 20" doors and 4" spacers in between (6" on each end)....but here's where my issue with proportion comes in -- is that too much space? Who knows! Hopefully the cabinet guy has some kind of visualization software where he can dummy it up and I can see what it will look like. There is another window over the back of the tub that isn't visible in this picture so I'm not sure I could make a vanity over there....but I do think I should keep the tub. It is not our only tub but the other one is a regular small tub/shower combo in the kids' bathroom and it would be nice to have one that is a little nicer/bigger. Please keep the feedback coming...you all are bringing up things I haven't thought about before and I really appreciate it!

My mother's bathroom sink is leaking at the nut that holds the pop-up pivot rod to the tailpiece, compounded by the slow drain that is allowing water to back up that high in the drain. On taking it apart, I found that the small flat plastic gasket that goes in the opening was broken. I picked up a universal replacement kit, and the smaller of the two "balls" fits, but the kit contains two of what I believe are pivot seats, each one having a concave side that fits the ball. There is no small flat gasket in the kit. There is no way to put it back together with one or more of the "pivot seats" in place, because the whole thing doesn't fit back into the hole far enough to get the original nut back on. The two nuts that came with the kit, one plastic and one brass, are too big for the threaded part on the tailpiece. I try to fix these things for her to save her money, but this one has me stumped so far. I don't know the manufacturer of the faucet, but the pivot arm has a plastic piece on the end that goes into the actual pop up part, not a metal rod for the whole length. This is the type that I've seen on parts lists for Delta faucet replacement parts. Not sure if this means anything. TIA Jo

Personal opinion for me but I do prefer metal hoses over plastic simply due to heft and how they loop or lay against the wall. The cleaning advantage goes to the smooth-surface plastic hoses, as the segmented surface of the metal can become a collection point. For the other parts, chromed plastic works fine. My Grohe handheld setup is maybe 20 years old. Still looks great, no leaks, scratched, cracks, etc.