HI! Well, we have two votes for the niche!!! The niche was just added recently and I love it too! I promise to keep it!!

Red, I don't iron much, but that is a great idea. I just saw one of those recently and thought it was the most clever idea. I have that long laundry room, so I think I'll do that in there. Maybe that could go on the back of my secret passage door !!!

Lily, I recently saw those curved rods in a photo and wondered if they really help. They seem perfect for those hard to reach corners. HA, that cat room is just a HUGE litter box room!!!! When I first starting reading your post I was thinking I was mean not to give them a window when they 'go'.. now I realize you thought they were staying in there :) Ours won't be confined in there, but if they were, your idea about the room venting if we lost electricity was clever. It will look like a closet from the bedroom, but inside it will be some sort of shower setup. I'll have a hose, tile, and a drain and a cat door or two. I've also heard about ventilation that goes on when it detects movement too (not sure if I need this yet). And yes, I definitely understand about some cats wanting their own space. My past two cats would spoon all day but these cat's would prefer that all the others lived on another planet.

But I don't have visitors that hate cats :) Allergic is another story!! My cats are rescues and are afraid of strangers, so there is no need to lock them up because having them scatter is taken care of voluntarily !! Sorry about your losing your last cat :( Funny about the crazy cat lady. I have 5 and tell people I'm at my limit because I'm 1 away from being a hoarder :)

Don't be jealous but I'm going to have a second smaller potty room on the other side of the house!!!! (it's a long house and I worry about when they are older. We are renting while waiting for the house to be built, and even though I was honest with the landlord,I did consider just telling him we had one or two because, like you, he never would have known!

Thanks Lily's mom!!!! I'm a little worried about having these closed in areas for the cat rooms because I do have one that has been known to guard. He's mellowing in his old age though. Fortunately mine don't guard the food, but there is definitely a pecking order. I need to put one's plate on a table far away or she won't eat! Oh, the cat boxes.. what a job!!! I do have more boxes than I have cats.. lovely :)

Here is an idea to get 12 inches of more closet space which means shrinking the niche (it would provide additional 12 inches of hanging space on both sides, and I would have 12 inch deep shelves behind the mirror on the 6 ft long wall that looks blank. This would decrease the size of my sculpture niche, and the niche would then be formed by the casing of the entry to the adjacent foyer hall. I can't visualize it but I worry that it may not be as nice to have the casing form the niche. Do you have an opinion on that? If it's a negative at all, and I assume it is, I'll forgo the idea of changing anything because I agree with you and like the special spot for something.

Lily (BTW, that is my cat's name!)

The entry to the bedroom is to the right of the cat room. When you are walking past the cat room, you take a right and pass by the opening of the cat room, and then by the bathroom entry on the left and the closet entry on the right, then you keep going until you get to the bedroom. I don’t have a door on the closet because I will be able to see a pretty view through a big window in the opposite bathroom. The closet its huge so I don’t technically need more space, but having a 6 ft wall with just a mirror on it seemed wasteful to me.

Yes, the negative would be if I found a great sculpture and it’s bigger than I could fit in the niche!! Other than that, if the casing of the foyer is okay to create the ‘wall/border’ of the niche, then that is great! I love your idea about forming a casing on both sides of the sculpture to really put a frame around it. Hopefully I’ll find something before the house is built!

Because I have the space, I AM going to get one of those 3 way mirrors :) I was going to do one of two things. One option is to have 3 mirrors on entire wall opposite the cat room and the niche, and the two outer mirrors would adjust when I wanted the 3-way function. And yes, I was hoping for storage behind all 3 mirrors but it works even if I don't add storage (the mirrors would be the cabinet doors). If I didn’t care about the niche, I could have full hanging space behind the mirrors too.

OR,

I saw this photo and was wondering if this is a good option if I don’t add more space to the closet. I could keep a little storage behind the two outer sides that project, and the center mirror would be flat against the wall. Then you adjust the side mirrors when needed. The negative is the two side mirrors (the wings) would be a little bit in the way of accessing the hanging clothes on either side. I imagine I don't have space for the shelves on the sides so the side mirrors may look odd just hanging out there.