Talley sue - of course you have a heat pipe, you're in NYC! LOL! Mine was rusted, peeling and thoroughly disgusting when I first moved in, so when I decided to paint the bathroom, I scraped all that nasty paint (and God knows what else) off with steel wool and then spray painted the pipe with heatproof paint. It has held up reasonably well, as you can see - this was 5 years ago. However, I hate the way it looks and I hate the fact that I occasionally bump against it when getting out of the shower (I've burned my unmentionables more than once, ouch!), so it needs to be covered. It's the only source of heat for the bathroom but our building is so overheated that I doubt it will bother me to have it covered/insulated. However, I don't know what my contractor has in mind - possibly just a sheet metal sleeve - that's one of the things we need to discuss. I love the idea of building a cabinet around it, but I'm not sure what I could store that close to a heat source. As for the vanity, I am considering white - I just wasn't sure how white would look against all that white tile. I haven't decided what color to paint the walls yet because I haven't decided on the mosaic accent, but it will likely have just about any blue or green imaginable in it so painting the vanity to match/coordinate should be a snap. There's just something I love about dark wood, though, and I wouldn't hesitate to use it if I didn't think it looked funny with the floor. I haven't ordered the floor tile, so I'm not married to the wood-look porcelain, but I also haven't seen any other floor tiles that really grab me. If you have any better suggestions for floor tiles that would coordinate with white subways, let me know!

Thanks Pal, I thought about the rotation, didn't draw it out though. I wondered if it would be too intrusive to walk into the room because it would line up with the entry. I didn't want to build a wall for the alcove tub either. I could try drawing this up tomorrow. A free standing bath would be beautiful. But I am concerned about user friendliness, both the very young and me, getting into the older age range. I originally thought about taking the tub out totally and putting in a shower, but those darned kids have fond memories of taking summer tub baths after a long day of dirty play! Then there is the occasional large dog bath. I even considered putting a cast iron laundry sink in this room instead of a BR cabinet with counter. But I want the room to have more of a bath look instead of a utility room look. It is the restroom that everyone uses first on this working farm. My kitchen, just redone, is next to this BR so I wanted the BR to reflect some of the character of the kitchen. For example, I have plans for the casing to be changed to match the new casing in the kitchen. The BR cabinet I thought would look nice on the opposite wall than the kitchen cabinet. They are within 6 or 7' of each other. I thought it would be a nice visual mirroring effect. As you stand at the sink you look to your Rt and behind, there through, the door would be the BR cabinet, in a painted version of the kitchen cabinet. Don't tell Marcolo but I think this bath is turning out in my minds eye to be the OTBR (for those not in the know, that would be the BR equivalent to One True Kitchen :) Thanks again Pal for stimulating the process of design!

@cpartist Thanks for alerting me that my plans didn't post. I had added them when I posted originally, but I didn't get an error message and in my haste, didn't notice they hadn't posted. I've changed the file type and added them now.

Cannot argue with how it turned out, that is for sure. It looks great!! The guy doing our tile in the bathroom said we were wrong for our choice of shower floor and accent tile, but we liked them, and think it looks great. That is all that really matters anyway, right?