lizzy88 writes: "Does anyone use Moen fixtures? It's cheaper than the Grohe or Hansgrohe, but how's the quality?" Most makers make several lines of fixtures, with different levels of quality. In some cases, the lines are differentiated by brand name (the way that in the car business Lexus and Scion, both made by Toyota, are differentiated from Toyota and marketed through separate channels); for instance, Delta and Hansgrohe are part of the same corporate group, but are marketed to different customers. In the case of Moen, the Moen-branded units that you find in the blister packaging hanging from a shelf hook at Target are different from -- different in quality from -- the higher end Moen-branded units that you are likely to find only at a plumbing specialty store. (And probably are manufactured on a different continent.) When we remodeled our shower nearly nine years ago, we installed a Hansgrohe Axor Steel valve, volume control, mixer, and handle, and are very happy with that choice, but we saw no reason for our choice of mixer/handle to limit the choice of showerhead that attaches (in our case, via an articulated arm) to the pipe coming out of the wall above our heads. A showerhead does not look anything like a mixer handle, so a Hansgroher Axor Steel showerhead would not "match" the mixer handle any more than any other brushed steel/brushed nickel showerhead fixture would. It would take some pretty amazing peripheral vision to look at the mixer handle and the showerhead at the same time to determine if the exact color tone of the one matches the exact color tone of the other. Accordingly, we selected the showerhead with an eye more to function than to styling In the nearly nine years since we installed the Hansgrohe mixer, we have used three different showerheads in that shower: originally, an Australian "Down Under Wonder Shower" showerhead, then for a while a Hansgrohe handset showerhead, and now our present one, a Moen Velocity 6320bn -- the "bn" stands for brushed nickel which unfortunately commands a substantial price premium over the plain 6320 polished chrome model. There is no way that anyone could rationally argue that the styling of our Moen showerhead is less of a "match" for the styling of our Hansgrohe mixer than a Hansgrohe showerhead would be. The Moen Velocity is the best showerhead that we ever have used in any setting, home or away from home; it is simply wonderful. We have slightly lower than average water pressure in our shower, but the Velocity lives up to its moniker and gives us more "zip" in the water stream than we have achieved with either of the other two shower heads. I have provided a link to the Amazon listing below, but with a little shopping, you might be able to find a better price. One other point: Moen customer service is great; Moen stands behind its products Here is a link that might be useful: Moen 6320bn (Amazon listing)

I did the same! They don't show it that way, but the head is just a screw-on head. The reason the head is so large is because it is a 4-function head. The Kingley is a single-function head. I decided I could live with a single-function in the tub and put the 4-function in the shower. Oh, and they don't tell you this, but if you are ordering a brushed nickel hand-held for the tub, the hose that goes inside the tub and pulls out is chrome, not brushed nickel. I doesn't really matter since it only shows when it is pulled out to use, but I thought something was wrong with mine until we got that straightened out.

Hopefully a wall directly behind this faucet wall will have an access of some sort to get at the piping. If your house is 50 yrs. old, you will probably have galvanized pipe. If the shower is on the first floor, it would probably be wise to change the piping from the cellar up to this fixture with copper because you will probably end up having to use some copper in the change over. One of the major companies (either Delta or Moen) makes a large plate that will fit over a hole that you would have to make to change the faucet from the tub side. The company that makes the plate has a faucet that fits perfectly into this plate. The Moen plate is called a "remodeling cover plate" and the part # should be #1920. I don't have a Delta number. Even with this, you have to be careful and not make a hole any larger than the plate will cover up. If you have ceramic tile on the shower walls, then the job gets even trickier. It would probably be a whole lot easier if you could do most of the work from the backside.

Thanks so much for the suggestions and advice. I am concerned about being able to get the tub close enough for a faucet reach but far away enough to clean. Unfortunately, a floor mount is not ideal since we're on a concrete slab. A wall mount would be a much easier install. It would be on a wall backing up to the master closet, so I think we could also have a panel to access the plumbing. I really like the Newport brass fixture, although it's a bit more modern than fixtures we've used in the other bathrooms. I would like to use a readily available brand name so parts are replaceable.