Thanks for the nice compliments, Snowyshasta and organic-donna. We absolutely love our bathroom, now that we've been using it for a few months. We also saw this design and "borrowed'' it. Actually we saw a bathroom in a showroom, and immediately knew it was what we wanted -- the colors, the look, the fixtures. It wasn't too feminine, or too masculine, but just right for a his and her bath. I just asked my DH what he liked best about the bath (he's sitting here watching basketball), and he said the shower. It is equipped with three heads -- a handheld, a stationary one and a rain head. "It's like being in a spa,'' he said. I love all the storage. As you can see it's not a huge room, but we created a serene space for the both of us, with every nice feature we wanted, and with enough storage for all my girlie things away from our three teenage daughters, and our collection of nice towels. My husband loves having his own space too. His, of course, is not as packed as mine, but we actually still have some half empty drawers and shelves. The tower is so handy. Our cabinet maker tried to talk me into making the glass doors on that tower a frosted glass, but I insisted on clear glass, and I'm glad. Doesn't look great in the picture, but I love that I can see everything in there. You can always hide things -- like first aid medicines -- in pretty baskets and still keep them there. We love the radiant floor heating, and we especially love the Robern medicine cabinets, which have mirrors inside the doors and even along the back of them. Love, love love our new bath. It was costly, and like you, Organic-donna, we worry about money, especially with the economy being as it is. But we think we were smart shoppers about everything we bougtht, and know that if we ever want to sell our house (but we have no such plans), we'll get our money back. We built it for us, and every single day I am grateful for this pretty bath and have no regrets that we did this. Besides, I grew up in family of nine -- and we all shared one bath! I'm done with sharing.

I agree that the master bath is awkward. It's small and maze-like, and so many doors (and pocket doors in the wrong places). I think you'll end up pulling your elbows in (people who've been in prison do that, you know, even after they're released from prison) as you walk through. And I agree with you: Sometimes the closet-in-bathroom works, but this isn't one of those cases. One reason is that the closet door and the shower are just too close together. Switch the closet and bathroom /simplify the bath layout so it fits better in the available space -- this closet is slightly larger -- the loser here is the sink; to keep the toilet under the window, the sink has to shrink -- but the circulation between the rooms is greatly improved, and you'll have a great sound barrier between the bedroom and bathroom: Switch the closet and bathroom /reduce the closet a bit so you can still have the large vanity and the toilet is neatly tucked back in a corner -- you're gaining a linen closet IN the bathroom (or that could be turned to the closet as a deep storage spot for out-of-season boxes, suitcases, whatever) -- or you could have a truly massive shower --- of course, you've lost some closet space here; the question is, was it useful closet space? You'd still have roughly 7' of storage down each side:

I'm with Enduring in that I would prefer the space given to the closet instead of the toilet. In the last house, the toilet in the master was crammed into a tiny space shared with a tub/shower combo. Really, really disliked the space. Would traipse down the hall and use the other toilet. (I used the shower in the master only one time in all of the seven years that we lived in that house.) Also, I would not put a tub in but that may be just me. (The house already has one tub.) I would much rather clean a shower once every six weeks or so (we squeegee after a shower) than have to clean the tub (bent over and on your knees) every single time it is used. Tubs use a lot of water vs the lo-flo shower heads. But, if you love tub baths and routinely use a tub to bathe, that's another story and you'll want to include it in the remodel. (If you're thinking a cast iron tub, the floor framing will probably need to be beefed up.) Not a huge deal since the ceiling below will likely be torn out anyway for the plbg. changes. The other thing I see as a problem is the door opening directly in front of the vanity. That is going to be a pain if this is a shared bath and someone else is standing in front of the vanity.

Thanks for the clarification and if we decide to send everything to an architect I will be sure to upload. At this point the builder has told us we have to put down a $5,000 deposit on the lot and $5,000 deposit to send the rough sketches to an architect. With the market being crazy, we are trying to compare what we would be able to afford with a new build vs. what we've been seeing come (and go) on the market. So we are trying to get a general sketch/layout idea of our build to see if the estimated costs are going to work in our budget.