caligirl - yeah, i hear ya on the toilet. Our house is over 100 years old, so pretty sure the standards for spacing wouldn't even be possible to accomplish in our tiny space. Lol! We are used to it, so it's really not a big deal for us. I'm not sure of exact measurements on either side of the toilet, but it's not too awful. It's not spacious, but it's not the worst. In comparison to many other homes in our little town, this is considered a large second bathroom! When we went house hunting 10 years ago, we really wanted to be close to the college my husband works at since it's a beautiful neighborhood, and that means older homes like ours. And about 90% of the ones we looked at had sub-optimal layouts for bathrooms or kitchen (and often both). As quirky and annoying as some of this is, it's actually a far step above some of the awful things we had as alternative options when we bought. There's basically 3 choices in our town - 100+ year old victorian with wonky renovations or bad layouts that need fixing, 1970s homes that are horribly dated and in less than desirable neighborhoods, or really overpriced brand new mcmansions. :-/ Or building new, I suppose. Here's a 2nd floor layout. I'm going to be straight to the point: we really don't want to take on a massive project that changes the footprint and walls of our second floor in order to perfect our bathroom. If it was just me? Sure. I'm up for anything. But I know my husband well enough to know he hates change and he would never go for it. I have a hard enough time convincing him to paint a room, I can't imagine he could visualize, let alone approve, that kind of change. Lol! Things that may be helpful to know about the rest of our house: we have a 3rd floor attic master bedroom with full bath (shower, jacuzzi tub, double sink, and walk in closet), and we have a first floor bath as well. Our main goal for THIS bathroom is wanting to update it and put in a stand up shower. The one thing that I definitely think could help us is changing the door swing to the bathroom! We could have it open out instead of in.

I agree just paint the trim white and even the inside of the door . I will however say a kids bathroom to be used by guests is a bit awkward unless the kids can be forced to be extra v\clean and tidy when you have guests.

This might be a crazy idea but I think it still worth mentioning: I find it is a good idea to enclose the tub but instead of shelves, I would put a upper and lower cabinet . The top could store towels etc but the bottom would have at least one or two drawers to store cosmetics etc. The inside (or outside) of the door(s) on the upper cabinet could have a mirror. This way one daughter could do her make-up or hair in that part of the bathroom (you need to plan for an outlet if you want one to dry her hair). The upper cabinet could be 12" deep while the lower be 22". This would make some more floor space by the door if one wants to come in or get out.

Sheloves, unfortunately the master bath is pretty small too and we don't have room for a tub in there. We currently have a very narrow prison cell-like shower that we're trying to figure out how to work with.... definitely no room for a tub. There is a set of 3 large windows in the bedroom on the wall opposite the bathroom. We can't move the closet.... just not in the budget as it would requite redoing the hardwood floors, etc., which have just been recently refinished. The bedroom shown in the pictures is the largest of the kids bedrooms! The second floor is just not that large unfortunately.... we live in a city where they build up, not out. :-) If we had an unlimited budget I'd add a second floor extension but there is absolutely no way that can happen! Karen, I really like the layout you drew, but we can't move the toilet. We've asked them to make up some drawings pushing the bathroom out into the hallway, but not the closet, like what you have shown (without moving the toilet) but I think that option will be just as expensive AND we will still have a really narrow, cramped bathroom. I'll try to post some pics of current conditions!