Man, talk about fate! I just posted a blog on ceramic tile (thereÂs a link at the bottom of this, if youÂre interested), but it is a subject that I keep coming back to, because it is absolutely one of the best ways I know to dress up any bathroom, regardless of size. One of the things I find particularly frustrating when I contemplate our remodeling plans for our bathrooms is that they are both five-by-nine-feet wonders that are destined to remain that size because we are not willing to undergo the expense of the major remodeling that would be required to increase the size of these rooms. What this means, though, is that those glorious bathrooms that I am forever fantasizing over are destined to remain just that, a fantasy. But tile, as it turns out, comes in all sizes and shapes, and this is especially true in Europe. Italy is home to all kinds of creative people who do wonderful things with kitchen and bathroom designs that I think are worth writing about, even though we Americans are not likely to send away for their products. But it helps to know about designs that are different than those we normally see in this country. But the one item I would seriously consider sending away for is Italian tile. I have seen tile that looks like slate or marble or a kind of brick-like building material. And I have seen these tiles decorated in all kinds of designs that are nothing short of stunning. TodayÂs blog deals with tile that has been made to look like a volcanic lava run! I think the choice you made with your tile is certainly a cut above the usual hum drum, but you might also want to consider some of ItalyÂs output. Really, theyÂre more than bathroom tile. TheyÂre a revelution. Here is a link that might be useful: Cabinet & Furniture Trends & Information

Many thanks to everybody who answered, you have all been very helpful in clarifying my very muddled thoughts. Here is a hopefully clearer description of the situation: The house is a 50's ranch style, with 3 bedrooms and a hall bath (4.5x8.5 ft) clustered on one side of the house, and the kitchen, office/den and another hall bath (4x9 ft) on the other side of the house, with a great room in the middle. We plan to stay in this house as long as we can, but we are in this city for my husband's work, and if something happens (although unlikely with his kind of job), we know we'll have to move somewhere else; therefore, we'd like to make updates to the house while keeping resale in mind. Our (excellent) realtor said that for resale we should have an ensuite. After reading the comments, I have to clarify with him if he thinks a lack of ensuite will narrow down the market significantly, or if we 'simply' would not get the best price for the house. Most houses in the area are old (in the whole city actually), and we saw plenty without ensuites. We saw two of the neighbors' houses, and they did not have ensuites. This is what we considered: 1. Redo the bathrooms with the existing footprint (not that we have room to change anything inside), but we can go far into making them pretty, 2. Add a door from the master bedroom to the hall bath next to it, and close access from the hall. This I think would be a bad idea, not only because the people in the other two bedrooms will have to go across the house to the other bathroom, but also because the master bedroom will end up with windows on two walls, three closets on another, and two doors on the fourth side. Not restful. 3. Add another bathroom next to the master bedroom where the closets are, with one closet door transformed into a bathroom door. This bathroom would be 4.5x12 ft, although it could go to 5x12 if need be (but no more, because we'll hit a big window), which will have a shower but no bathtub. We talked to a professional who said it will fit fine with the caveat that the toilet will likely be the first thing you see in front of the door because of the current clearance requirements. 4. Build an addition. This again I think would be a very bad idea, since it would be blindingly expensive and the house is already on the higher side of square footage for the surrounding area. We will of course fix everything that is broken. The interior doors are the original 50s doors, hollow core dark wood look with lots of scuffs and holes, and they were cut short to fit the now non-existent carpet, so I would qualify changing them as fixing what is broken (and they bug me every time I look at them... ). The windows are a perk; we are still divided on those. I tend toward option 1, while my husband is going for option 3, although he agrees we do not need another bathroom. The reason I feel ill equipped to make this decision is that I'm originally from Europe, and even after so many years here I feel mildly perplexed about the North American love affair with bathrooms. Our previous rental was built in the last ten years and had a huge ensuite which I didn't like. I found it hard to keep as clean as I thought it should be, and it was so large I felt as if I was doing my business in public. Given the bathroom pictures on Houzz, I'm clearly in a minority. Your comments help ensure that I don't miss anything that might otherwise be obvious, so thanks again. And extra thanks to whoever makes it to the end of this post...

I would love to see your unconventional master bath!! Our plan started with a first-floor master bedroom /bath plus an extraordinarily poorly placed powder room. You noted above that you don't like cleaning bathrooms -- I'm with you on that. Since it's just me and my husband most of the time, I don't see the point in two toilets on the first floor ... so we moved the powder room next to the master bath and removed the toilet from the master bath. So we're planning the powder room to be adjacent from BOTH the master bedroom AND the main house ... and then we have the bathing facilities separate. Unlike toilets-shoved-in-closets, the powder room is 5' the short direction, so it's large enough for comfort, and I only have one toilet to clean on the first floor. I've removed the other parts of the house, so it looks kind of confusing ... you'll have to trust me that it fits in nicely with the rest of the house ... at the foot of the tub, that's a little ledge and a TV for my husband ... that's a linen tower to the left of the vanity ... that's the shower head floating in mid-air /obviously it'll be attached to the wall: I definitely see your point about two standard bathrooms being more economical, just trying to figure out for myself if I was thinking of doing something different for the sake of being different or if it would actual make life easier for my family! Walking yourself through various options is a good way to determine that. We personally are sold on the above bath layout because my husband likes to stay in the tub for hours at a time (he often "reserves" the tub before a, so we decided it makes sense to place the toilet close-but-separate. Also, what computer program are you using? :) HGTV Home and Landscape Platinum Suite. It's nothing special. I drew up your latest suggestion in this program. Concerns: - If you're trying to have kids share, you need a sink in the toilet closet. Otherwise, you still have a problem with the kid in the toilet closet coming out and having no sink available to him ... if you're going to do a toilet-in-a-closet, I'd put a small pedestal sink in there too. - You have a bottleneck in the sink area. If the kids are using this area at the same time, you're going to have people trying to squeeze past people at the sink. - I forgot the exact square footage and have already cleared it out of my computer program, but it was in the 130s ... so it's still bigger than two simple bathrooms and has water walls spread around. However, if the access is off a common hallway, having two baths right beside each other seems silly to me I think the two baths side-by-side appear silly because they're floating in mid-air. If we had a whole floorplan and could see one bedroom to the left of the back-to-back baths /two bedrooms to the right of the back-to-back baths, it'd look different. It'd look like the bathrooms each "belonged" to those bedrooms, though they're accessed through the hall. Mrs. Pete has some great ideas. keeping your water from the same source, but with two separate you'll definitely have an easier time selling. best of luck! I agree that most people would be attracted to two plain bathrooms rather than a "creative" layout. With resale in mind, here's a question: How long do you anticipate staying in this house? If you're going to move before the kids are teens, I'd say go with one simple bathroom. One bathroom would be enough for them until they start in with make-up /hair and shaving. I think that a girls bath and a boys bath might be nice - perhaps the girls bath has one sink and more storage / makeup area and a tub and the boys get 2 sinks and a shower unit, etc That'd work fine if the OP ends up with a nice even split of 2 girls and 2 boys ... but since half these children aren't even conceived yet, that's a guess.

I got the cabinets through Home Depot (20% off) they are not higher end but they have held up extremely well and we’ve been happy with them. I don’t remember the brand, but the color is cognac on maple. They’re standard kitchen cabinets. We got 2 regular drawer banks, 1 extra wide drawer bank, 2 sink cabinets and the closet you can see in the picture for about 1800 w/the discount. We bumped the shower wall 6 inches into the bedroom to make the shower bigger, pulled the cabinets out from the wall a couple of inches to provide more counter top. And curved the edge the counter for interest. Just for fun, this is what we had to start with. The tub was rusted and there were two doors, 1 from the hall & 1 from the master bedroom, we closed up the hall door. I think we got our moneys worth. LOL As for the labor, I found my Contractor through a plumber I had hired to put in a kitchen faucet. I asked if he had someone good he could refer and he referred Matt to me. Matt had his own company but just him and his guys. All of his work was by word of mouth, he didn’t advertise or push for business, he didn’t need to. I think I got fair pricing from him because he didn’t have the overhead a lot of the larger companies might have. He wasn’t the least expensive and he wasn’t the most expensive. Finding someone who was willing to work on our schedule and not having to have it done ASAP is what really helped me to be able to keep our costs at a minium for both labor and materials.