Hi! The big window in the shower is part of my 1985 tract house and appears to be a problem for most homeowners in my neighborhood. The original installation was prone to leaks, with water penetrating the inside of the wall. Many neighbors use a shower curtain along that wall, but I wanted to have an unadorned window. We gutted the room, and hired a local "vinyl" window company to install the picture window. It's dual pane with patterned (Industrex) glass. The interior of the window was not rated to be used in a wet environment. The installer caulked areas he thought would be vulnerable. There is no way to know if water is going inside the window, but to my eye I think it's doing great. My tile installer used "old school" techniques, putting wire lath up with layers of mortar which he leveled perfectly. The tile is perfectly square and sits flush against the window. Along the bottom edge, he used sheets of vichithane (sp?) which is a sticky rubber product. He over-did that area to make sure water never entered the wall. The marble sill sits on top of the waterproofing system. A window in the shower is great and I love the design, however, I can't shower at night with the light on. I have no problems with a "peep show" as long as I shower in the morning with the light coming in from the outside. Hope that helps! P.S. The local window company convinced us they manufacture windows, but I suspect they are the same as big-box store retrofit vinyl windows. The rest of the house we used Renewal by Andersen and they're much better.

Is there any way to run plumbing to the separate vanity area to make it into a sink? We are doing a gut remodel of our bathroom and we were able to cram in the shower, 5'6" claw foot tub, toilet and two sinks (on adjacent walls though, not next to each other) in a slightly less than 10'x11' space including sloped ceilings and a couple of windows. Here is an older version of our plan for the bathroom but shows the two sinks. The one next to the tub is a console sink (on chrome legs) so very open and the tub is now a double ended tub with plumbing in the middle. Here is a newer plan showing a tile layout I was messing with and the right tub. It also shows a bump out for a knee wall where the new drain is going to run - it turns out there was steel angle along that wall and we could not run the drain line under it so had to go through. It's more of a challenge to get the water there but wasn't impossible.

Thanks for all the great suggestions! @Green Designs- thanks for the info about the professionals. We'd probably do the work ourselves but call someone into inspect it (my husband is an electrical engineer and an amazing diy-er). Unfortunately we cannot remove the tub completely because it's the only one in the unit (master bath has a whirlpool tub and a stall shower) and as the area is mostly families, they'll need somewhere to bathe their kids. @writersblock and cat_mom - thanks for the idea about a shallower vanity- I'll have to check them out to see if I like any. Yes- thats the Kohler Archer tub. @mydreamhome- I'll have to remeasure around the tile and add some space for the wall- hopefully it'll be enough! @may_flowers - I do like the idea of a pedestal sink, I'd just be concerned with storage. Maybe a wall-mount sink with a cute storage shelf underneath? We'll see if I can sell my husband on one! I definitely like the idea of a shallower vanity too now that I've googled for them- It would definitely give me more space to open doors or drawers. I'll have to look at those when I'm out and about. IKEA definitely has some good ideas! I'll also have to look more into left-drawered vanities. The husband promises that once I'm done with my CPA exams, we can start on the bathroom- July can't come soon enough! Follow-up question: If I went with a shallower vanity, as many of them on my quick perusal are less than 36 inches wide, would I still mount it up against the back and side wall, or would I leave a gap so that it's more evenly spaced in the room? Say I get a 26 inch wide vanity, I've got an extra 11 inches of space, and I don't know if that would look weird if the vanity is up against the corner, then a foot of space between that and the toilet.

Well, phooey. I taped it out in the bathroom with blue tape last night and it looked like it would fit, but with too many nos, I'm back to the drawing board. Interesting thought, Vix. Right now we don't actually have a toilet room, so much as a separate toilet "area" (there's no door, and the closet takes up too much room to add a door), but it's on my agenda to create one. In our house, it's very necessary. I generally use that bathroom to try to FIND privacy, only to have 3 people (and sometimes the dog) follow me into the bathroom. I'm looking forward to having a door that locks and a fan so that I don't have two little people handing me the TP and asking whether I'm doing number 1 or 2 (oh, and the 1 year old likes to flush while I'm ON the pot; so I've got my own special cold water washlet), while DH decides that he absolutely has to shave and brush his teeth at that exact moment. Now if I take a hike to the guest bath on the other side of the house, all three just follow me AGAIN. Sometimes when I have insisted on locking the door in the guest bath (no way to do that with our LOUVERED -- why??? -- pocket door in the master), my one year old plopped down prostrate outside the door and cried until I open the door. For my W/C, I want to put in a LOUD fan; no whisper quiet for me. Maybe I'll even add a radio. :) The way I'm seeing it, I can either get rid of the long vanity altogether and live with a fairly small vanity, plus a tub and shower, I can skip the tub and live with the kids' bathroom on the third level as the only room with a tub, or we can bump out that weird corner jog, which would give us an additional 49'' X 27'' space -- enough to fit a 5X3 tub, 5X3 shower and keep the two vanities. But that sounds very expensive and will require carefully removing and replacing the siding to match the existing. DH's response to all this was "why do we need a tub?"