"If you want the style with a separate hot and cold knobs, you lose the pressure balanced safety feature (anti-scald when with water pressure fluctuations - toilet flush for example)." No, you don't. Several of the dealers specializing in vintage bathrooms sell retrofit pressure-balance kits that go right in the wall and work with just about any plumbing brand so that older bathrooms can be brought up to code without completely destroying their old plumbing, but they work just fine with new plumbing too. Signature Hardware is one dealer, but I know there are others. If you're not using chrome or brass for the shower hardware, the chrome cover can be painted; scuff-sand with fine sandpaper, prime with a good metal primer, and paint to the desired color. Spray paint made for metal works nicely. Allow to cure for several days to a couple of weeks before installation, and don't use harsh cleaners or abrasives on the cover. It may peel several years down the road, just strip off the old paint and repaint it. An easy way to remove paint from hardware is to line your crock-pot with one of those heatproof baggies they're making for that purpose nowadays and put some hot water in it with a few tablespoons of baking soda or fabric softener, or a good squirt of dish soap. Toss the cover in there and let it cook along on low overnight. In the morning the paint will peel right off (let it cool first!). Scrub off any remaining traces with one of those green scrubbies and rinse well. Allow to dry thoroughly before repainting. If you don't have a crock-pot and have a whole bunch of hardware to strip because previous owners of your house were idiots and painted right over it, may their armpits be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels, you can usually get one for $2-3 at a Goodwill, or very basic ones are normally about $10 at KMart sorts of places. (If you have a crock-pot dedicated to this purpose you don't need to use the baggie thing. I'll be getting one, since every! single! freakin! door! in this house - and this being an old house, every room has at least two LOL - has two hinges, two doorknobs, two keyhole escutcheons, and a mortise lock to strip of umpty-ump layers of paint.) If you don't have a crock-pot and you just have the one thing to strip, try putting the aforementioned ingredients in a pot, bringing them to a boil, adding the hardware, covering the pot and setting it aside overnight. I hear this may not work quite as well as the crock-pot but it does work.

My master bath has brown cabinets and the window and crown molding are done in brown wood...my master bedroom has brown crown molding and brown accents. There is a common thread so the two rooms flow. But they are not the same color, not a lighter tone of the other...nope, two different colors, different styles, definately different linens (I only believe in white for towels because I believe God invented bleach for a reason). My hardware in the master bath and master closet are in similar gold tones. And the lighting between the three rooms is all antique, most are exposed bulb fixtures from the early teens but in different colors. So there's another little carry through. I think my three rooms, which are all different colors with different linens flow because I've kept a few key features similar, though not exactly the same. In the bath, brown is the main color, in the bedroom it's an accent and in the closet it becomes the main again. The walls of the master suite are bronze (literally metalic bronze tone) but the master bath is done in a marble like finish of cream and tan. The closet is gold. All different textures, but they still flow well and give me flexibility to do different things in the master bedroom if I want to. This is the view from the bath to the bedroom: And from the bedroom to the bath: And I do require the cat sit on the counter in the bath at all times because he matches the wall in the bedroom....

Our budget right now is $30k. I am not quite sure how much that’ll get me. I have never undertaken anything like this. This will absolutely be something we take on in stages. This space is what we’d like to tackle first and is the largest. In our kitchen at some point we will replace countertops and in our other bathroom we will swap out the toilet, tub and vanity. Luckily the rest of the house is functional for us. I lack the vision and knowledge that a lot of people on here have of being able to see a functional layout in disaster zones lol. My intuition tells me all these spaces can somehow be rearranged to give us what we need. I’m completely wrong, please help. Im also completely fine and understand if it’s impossible, financially or practically to have it all. I do have a consultation with a designer scheduled for this week (so excited), and I’m praying that she’ll have time to take us on as clients but I got excited and wanted to ask the Houzz community first. Thank you !!

We offer free in home consultations if you are located in the Chicago area. During that consultation I could give you a pretty good idea of whats possible and all that is involved. If you are outside the area I suggest you look for a NARI (National Association for the Remodeling Industry) affiliated firm. Can be found at NARI.ORG Good luck.