Can you flip your plumbing? Giving you the space on the 98" present tub wall for two large vanities since it's a Jack and Jill. Is the shower out past the wall as in the photo? If so you could flip the toilet into that space and add a door and have a private water closet there with door and add more privacy. That's a decent amount of space to allow for some dual use with two users able to use it at the same time with some privacy concerns met. There is a lot of space there to do layouts that would work well for a J&J shared bath. We have a Jack and Jill bath upstairs and it is divided with the tub and shower area walled off with a door and the vanity with dual sinks in a separate area. That way one can still use the sinks while the other person in in the shower/tub/ toilet area without tying up the entire bathroom for the other person. I have a tub on a pedestal or plinth as some call it and I don't have any cleaning issues with it. It's 68" which is plenty long enough, it could be shorter actually since I'm only 5'4". My faucet is the British telephone type that hangs up on it's stand. It has it's floor mounted water supply. That was an expensive faucet even with going cheap with an off brand it was still over $800 and if I had gotten a name brand it would have been more than $2000 for it all. I found that the spout and two faucets with spray was one thing but then they have to add in all the components of the chrome pipes to the floor and I don't know what all before it was all said and done. Sort of like when you buy the washer and they need to add for the hoses etc. It still wasn't a deal breaker. I ended up buying a Victoria + Albert "York" model tub and I love it. I"m so glad I ripped out that horrid jetted gigantic tub. I have never looked back on that decision. We never used it and ti took up so much space. It had gunk in the jets from day one and I couldn't get past it no matter how much I cleaned it the black gunk still came out. You did well to rid yourself of that space hogging tub. Well done!

As someone said, are you absolutely sure that is your actual length? Have you removed the tub or surround, and taken the measurement from the framing itself? If you have the correct measurement, maybe if you find something that will work, you could notch or plane down the stud 1/4 or 1/2" to tub height to get you a little bit of room. I'm just an OCD DIYer, so not sure if that is "advisable", but I would consider it, if it were just a partition wall and otherwise appeared strong enough.

"I could also just get a pull-down faucet for the sink and aim it at the tub to fill it." You could - but you won't like it. The most one of those will fill is 2.2 gallons a minute - some less that that. Divide your tub's capacity by that and you're looking at 20 minutes to fill +/- Not good. beekeeper - I have one of these and have placed more than half a dozen in projects over the past few years. What you get for your money is a machined brass body that mounts in the ceiling or wall and a plated trim piece. The body is a substantial piece of hardware and chrome,brass, nickel plating costs $$$ too. Whether that's all worth 500 + bucks, is up to you. Like davidro says, it doesn't matter what the delivery system is, this is just an opening for hot water to come out of, albeit one with a bit of engineering. GD & Spanish - the splashing is very much dependent on the mounting height of the unit AND the tub selected AND the location of the water column inside the tub. Mine hardly splashes at all. The ones I have seen that splash only do so for a minute or so until their is enough of a pool in the tub to counteract it. Flat bottom tubs with tall ceilings are going to splash more than one from 7' into a sloped contact point in the tub. Besides , we're talking water in a bathroom, generally tiled so what's the big deal ??? It's not like the amount of splash is the same as taking a shower and leaving the door open. 2. While you are correct in that "the water cools off much more than it would from just a regular tub filler", it's not as if it cools off enough for anyone without a thermometer to tell a difference, and a very sensitive one at that! Sure the air cools the water more from a stream falling from 8 feet than one falling from two feet. But bath water that is 100 + degrees is not going to cool down to 90 deg. in the xtra 1-2 seconds it takes it to fall from the ceiling- get real. Additionally , that filler produces a very dense column of water (laminar) that has little to no air in it, so one might argue it will be hotter and less prone to heat loss than a "regular" filler that introduces room temp air into it's stream - thus cooling it off on it's way to the tub. So don't worry Spanish -your tub will still be plenty hot with that filler if you choose it. IT'S A NON -ISSUE people. I've already alluded to the real issue for lower tub temps - FILL TIME. That's directly related to the delivery system ( valve). If your valve and accompanying filler will only deliver 5 gallons a minute it's going to take a while to fill an 80 gallon tub, and there will be some heat loss. Select a valve that delivers 20 gallons a minute and you can be soaking quicker that most people can undress. Here is a link that might be useful: laminar valve body - see page 2

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.