thanks Bill! If, however, our goal is to avoid problems (mold, mildew, water damage) 10 - 15 yrs down the line, should we change out the tub surround (yes, I'm going to presume you'll say) AND the floor? Or, can we seal the grout and call it a day on the floor? Many many years ago, I remember seeing a mushroom grow up between the wall and the floor, in a bathroom, of a place that I was living in. Guess that there was a wee bit of water leaking out of the shower!

Yes you could do what you suggest (turning the toilet 90*). Generally, though, I like to see a 5' dimension for the long axis of the toilet rather than the 4' above. Practically speaking, it will be really difficult to find a toilet short enough (front to back) to still get a 24" clearance in front of it which is the code minimum. 5' is more comfortable, and more practical. If you do go with a "tiny" room, make sure you won't end up in trouble if someone has a medical emergency in the tiny room. Therefore, you'll either need to choose a pocket door or an outswing door. (the reason: inswing doors have the hinges on the inside and are not accessible to EMTS to remove the door. The EMTs can't just open the door because the person with the medical emergency has no place to fall in a tiny room except to the floor space (which is where the door needs to swing)--blocking the door closed. This is dangerous and wastes precious rescue time trying to access the person who needs the help. An outswing or pocket door (or barn door) solves this issue.)

In a house with three floors that you will be using--basement, ground floor, second floor--it would seem odd to me to have three bathrooms all on the same floor. I house sat all through grad school and twice lived in houses where the bathroom wasn't on the same floor as the bedroom I was sleeping in. It wasn't horrendous, but I'd never buy a place with that setup. If you needed the bathroom in the middle of the night, it wasn't a matter of stumbling a few feet down the hall. You had to turn on a lot of lights and navigate the stairs both ways. It woke me up completely and made it difficult to get back to sleep. And having to shower on a different floor was weird, even though I was the only person in the house. It just seemed like a lot of time was wasted running up and down stairs in various degrees of being dressed, instead of being able to slip easily into the bathroom down the hall. You're going to have an overabundance of bathrooms on one floor, taking up floor space, and nothing on the the other two floors. I'd vote for at least a powder room on the second floor, with a shower being even better. If you are thinking of resale value in the future, a bathroom on the second floor would be an asset. I guess it depends on how often you think people will be staying in the second floor bedroom and for how long. A night or two? Easy enough to make-do. A week or more? More of a problem. And what is the make up of the extended family? If there are a lot of kids and you are hoping to corral them in the rec room when the house is full, a bathroom down there would stop a lot of traffic up and down stairs. Of course, it would also allow the kids to make water balloons unsupervised, so you have to pick your battles . . . .

I screwed up - it's a master bedroom and bath in the basement with walk out. You are 100% correct with the confusion. What I've decided to do is to have this be more of a "guest master bedroom" or future inlaw place. Every home is initially designed for the current occupant but also with future occupants in mind. Therefore what I'll do is focus on the upstairs primary bedroom and then if I do decide to stay, I'll give this to my soon to be teen-age daughter and I'll build my primary bedroom in the basement. When someone comes to look at the home to buy, they can look at the downstairs as a large "room" which could be a bedroom (staged as such) and an awesome bathroom ideally suited for a bedroom or just an awesome entertainment room.