You can lower the ceilings but you'd have a regular ceiling on the first floor. It's not that you can't; it's that you don't want to. Personally for safety reasons, I'd put a ceiling up on the first floor and hide the plumbing in the ceiling. I think a step up into a bathroom is a huge safety issue. I can see the first time someone decides to walk out of the bathroom with some water dripping and they slip down those steps.

Well, now I don't know where to start! First - does anyone think that having the shower on the outside wall would be too low for comfort? That is one of the reasons we wanted it on the inside wall. We are not tall, but any future buyer might be... Next, there is no way that I could even conceive of moving a spouse into the kid's rooms!!!! If they still need to live with us a that point, I would reconfigure the basement as a suite. I want to give them a decent sized room with the potential to put in a double bed, I can't plan that far ahead! Yes, I do think that our own bathroom is a bit too small - I would like a bit more storage, so I think that we will steal from the closet which I do think is too large for us. Mrs Pete - "I'm surprised no one's mentioned walking through the closet to reach the bathroom." I too am surprised that no one has raked me over the coals for this! lol...! It might have been your set-up that gave me a bit of this idea... And point noted about getting things right on the actual drawing. I am going to get that double sink changed to a single and fix some of the doors on the closets etc. Our designer is on holiday right now, so I am not getting any instant responses. you guys are WAY faster...

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.

Depends on the layout. Our design has a combined space with wardrobe, linen closet, and vanity on one end and wet area (shower, tub, and sauna) on the other. Toilet is in its own closed space in between. It makes a lot more sense to me for the bathroom and dressing space to be combined. Humidity can be dealt with through adequate ventilation (some ventilation fans even have humidity sensors).