Sorry I didn't get to this sooner, djdoggone, and sorry this is long but I can go on forever about bathrooms. LOL If it's too much to digest at once, you could save it to your "clippings" (look on the right side of the screen) and read it in bits. Glad your library is getting you the Powell book. Even if you find absolutely nothing else useful, which I doubt, there's some great eye candy in it! :-) However, 8'x9' is not a small bathroom, it is quite generously sized! When you said "tiny bathroom" I was thinking more like the 5'x6' bath that's fairly typical of a small house! Do you have a floorplan? I was able to fit both a soaking tub (a clawfoot, yum) and a shower stall into the 8.5'x8.5' master bath in my previous house; in the same-sized upstairs bath (oh, do I miss having separate baths) had a shower/tub but a double vanity and good-sized linen closet in the same size room. Very rarely do you have to lay mosaic tiles individually - they pretty much always come in sheets for easy installation, thank goodness! Unless you cough up for custom made borders (yeowch) or use a simple strip border, they have to be put together by hand but you can set them up on mesh mosaic sheets beforehand, which are then just laid onto the thinset. I had eliminated the small mosaics because you had specified "easy to clean" and that's a lot of grout! (I was unimpressed with the so-called stain-resistant epoxy grout. It DID stain, had a bit of a plasticky look, cost a lot extra for both materials and installation, and just wasn't worth the hassle in the end.) While Greek key borders can be had premade they are virtually always either glass or stone which isn't really appropriate for the style of house you're aiming for. One of the other nice things about the Daltile octagon-and-dot, it's dirt cheap. :-) You can do a simple but attractive border by cutting out the small tiles in, say, a double line around the perimeter of the room (before installing the sheet) and replacing them with those of another color. It is very classic and goes pretty much anywhere. (Some people will insist that you have to use large floor tiles with a small bathroom "to make it look larger". I disagree, especially if the color values of the small tiles and the grout are similar which minimizes visual clutter and busy-ness. I also disagree that small spaces must be automatically made to "look larger" - we have in this culture an attitude of "bigger is better" even when perhaps we should really embrace compact efficiency.) If you live in a chilly location, electric floor warming mats are probably the best few hundred bucks you'll spend in a bathroom project. On average they use about the same amount of electricity as a light bulb, and you can get a programmable thermostat as an option. I loved mine and the people who bought the house were totally jazzed about having such a "luxury". (It cost about $300 for the mat and the fancy thermostat - Home Depot and Lowes both carry the Suntouch brand, which is what I used.) Per the pedestal sink... maybe I'm just strange (okay, that's nothing new) but having pedestal sinks has always made it much easier for me to manage the clutter factor in the bathroom, because it forces me to put things away when I am done with them. When I have plenty of horizontal space like a full countertop, it accumulates "stuff". Some pedestal sinks have wider decks than others, too, giving you more room to set things down while they are in use - American Standard's Retrospect and Standard are two right off the top of my head, as are many of the wider pedestal sinks from Kohler (Bancroft, Kathryn, Devonshire, for example; the narrower versions have skinny decks). Toothbrush holders and suchlike can be wall mounted to get them off the sink top, or a glass shelf placed above the sink under the mirror or nearby. If there is floor space, a small standing cabinet (here's a spendy one at Pottery Barn, but it gets the idea across) can be placed next to the sink. As for toilet paper storage, there are attractive cylindrical storage containers especially for TP (Wal-Mart, Target, Linens & Things, etc.) that hold a four-pack and can tuck behind the toilet, keeping the "stash" within easy arm's reach. If you get monster packages, the remains can be stored elsewhere and the in-bath container kept filled from that. You obviously already know about recessed cabinetry, which is usually your best friend in a small bathroom - a wood-framed recessed medicine cabinet (VanDykes.com has a nice kit that is cheaper than a similar readymade from somewhere like Restoration Hardware) over the sink is stylistically compatible with beadboard etc. and holds some stuff, and if you use beadboard on the walls you can use a beadboard door on your recessed wall cabinet to help it blend in, and keep your trim very narrow. I had a tall, skinny (I'm talking like a 10x15" footprint) freestanding linen cabinet tucked into the corner near the toilet to keep the standard bathroom things in; things that were not used often were stored in the closet of an adjoining room. A pretty decorative cabinet can hang over the toilet to hold yet more - in the upstairs bath in the previous house that's where TP and such lived because we could just reach over our heads to get a fresh roll! LOL I am not much for the "spacesaver" sort of over-the-toilet cabinet, although some people like them. If you think the right way you can cram a positively ridiculous amount of storage into even a small bathroom. Can you do a pocket door? They are some of the best spacesavers in the world, and they have come a LONG way from the flimsy things of the 60s and 70s, more like the heavy and durable ones of the Victorian era (many of which are still functioning just fine today!). There is even locking hardware available. I understand the PITA factor of the combo shower and tub in a vintagey bath, I'm in the same boat. (Complicated by the need for a deep soakable tub for the 60" niche - I'm a daily soaker - in a lighter-weight acrylic tub in this 107yo house, feh! I love the feel of cast iron, but reinforcing the floor joists to permit the cast iron would require tearing up the floor in the hallway and one bedroom, or tearing down the ceilings in the dining room and kitchen. Uh, no.) Pretty shower/tub faucet sets are available - I love the one in American Standard's Standard Collection and it's very reasonably priced. Subway tile (white with light gray grout) would look especially lovely for the tub surround but if the hubby is being super stubborn then a solid surface (Corian type, but there are several other brands now) material would be attractive behind that glass and easily cleanable. A light gray with a subtle granite-like flecking, perhaps, although Corian does make a pretty solid light gray (Pearl Gray). Not quite sure what you mean by "how do I frame this bath" - can you clarify further? Have you visited the Smaller Homes forum? It's going through a slowish patch now but it has flurries of activity, and if you post questions you'll almost certainly get plenty of answers.

I just accidentally went through this same debate with my bathroom remodel, which involved replacing a tub with a curbless shower. Here's what happened. When the plumber finished with his work, we wanted to test the shower, but of course I didn't have the glass installed (or even ordered) yet, so we took down the shower curtain and rod from the other bathroom and put it up to run the shower. And to my surprise, even with a curbless shower, the curtain worked fine! I figured I just saved myself about $2500 not buying the glass, and if I change my mind, the blocking is all still in the wall, ready for glass. Also, in my particular case, since this was a remodel, I had wanted a larger shower area and to move the toilet about 6 inches over to so that it wasn't too close to the glass shower wall (bumping my elbow when sitting on the john). However, the plumber strongly recommended against moving the toilet, especially since my house is on a slab foundation. In fact, he said, "I've got two kids in college - I'd be happy to take your money. But moving toilets often opens a whole can of worms and if it was my house, I wouldn't do it." I appreciated his honesty on that. Finally, my other consideration in this bathroom remodel and having the curbless shower was that I thought one of my elderly parents would be living with me at some point, and that it would need to be either walker- or wheelchair-accessible. The shower curtain lets me move the shower "wall" completely out of the way of the toilet, making both shower and toilet wheelchair-accessible.

kim, yes, waterproofing is paramount w/tile showers. Most homeowners don't know anything about them and trust the people they hire to do right. a lot of those people end up on here asking, "what went wrong?" I urge people to do a bit of homework and get an idea of what's correct and what is needed. Ask you tile setter all the questions you think you need to know and see how knowledgeable they are. I tell people all the time that grout is not waterproof. sealers only buy you time before a stain sets in. a lot of people assume it makes them stain/water proof. The more you know, the more you'll know when your tile guy is a hack or not. Do you know how you want your tile layout? a good setter will do a dry set on the floor or outside to make sure his measurements are spot on you don't end up w/tile slivers. the hacks? they'll just start on the wall in a corner and do whatever. My guys spent almost 3 hours figuring out the exact measurement/placement of my herringbone accent piece. All the tiling around it and the niches are spot on and perfectly done. JB forum has a wealth of info. When I wanted to do slate tile in our kitchen (we do our own tiling) I found out about sealing them first, how to clean them, etc. ditto w/the pebble tiles and travertine. I sat and read for 4 hours and absorbed as much as I could. as for Fusion Pro, or FlexColor CQ, or Laticrete, etc, every setter has their favorites. find out what your guy likes to use. is he flexible to try other items? willing to work w/you and your questions? if he asks for half payment up front, and the rest before the grout is dry, pick someone else. final payment (usually the last 50% or so) is held until you're satisfied w/the final work. If he is picking up the tile and supplies, obviously you'll give him the money for that. If you order your own tile, tell him about it and see if he can get it at his discount or if he's willing to work like that.

We recently helped my son paint his guest bathroom and then we replaced the shower curtain. He got a fabric liner that could also be used as a curtain, but he also wanted an outer curtain. Interestingly, the background of the outer curtain is very similar with a texture woven into the white fabric so the two look much the same other than the embroidered border on the outer one. Bought them both at HomeGoods. We got curtain rings similar to the ones Toby posted and found them on Amazon -- putting the curtain up was easy and fast -- taking it down to wash will be much easier than what he had up there. As a plus, the ones we got are slightly lower on the back side so that the liner hangs slightly below and isn't seen from the outside (looks like Toby's are the same way). Thought that was a nice touch.