Thank you Brickton and Willow Decor so much for your advice. I clearly can use all the help I can get. WD I actually have your site bookmarked already! I love that clawfoot under the eaves and wanted to use one in my space but I don't want to leave my guests without a shower option and I can't figure out how to put a shower curtain in without blocking the visual of the window. Does anyone have any experience with building out a partial tub surround like the one I've described? I'm teetering on whether to just go with an intergral apron with a curved line to try to reduce the boxiness of the space, but I do love the paneled look that is often used with drop in tubs... Also, for the design asthetic, any opinions on whether putting up beadboard on the walls will be too much for this tiny space?

I am in the same boat with you re the shower. There is a Kerdi shower thread floating around that seems to give great directions and I've also seen the john bridge tile forum recommended a lot. We also have a friend that has done a lot of beautiful tile work in his home - including shower walls, but no shower floors. He is willing to to "learn" on our shower floor and my DH is all for it. While that scares me, it scares me less than us trying it ourselves so we have been considering it. My other option is a cast iron shower pan (Kohler Salient). No mortar base, no grout, etc. and can be paired with tile, solid surface, or acrylic surrounds. You can also find clawfoot cast iron shower bases. One of those would be a very appropriate look for your home if you can fit it (they seem to be almost universally 42" square). Here is a link that might be useful: Google shopping results

It seems to me the better question might be, "should you bother with a walk in closet or would it be better to stick with a reach in closet?" Clothing hanging on a rod typically sticks out 24 inches from the wall. Then, if any clothing is beyond arm's reach from the door, you need an aisleway. In my opinion, an aisleway less than 32" wide is claustrophobic. And, if you're thinking of hanging clothing on two perpendicular walls, keep in mind that even tho the poles cross in the corner, you can only hang clothing in the corner on ONE of the two poles. And whatever is hung in the corner is going to be hidden by clothing on the other pole. Garments hung in corners wind up seldom being chosen for wear because basically they're hidden away! DH and I shared a 5x7 closet in our old house and when I was packing up to move to the new house, I found some dresses that I had not worn in over ten years tucked back into the corner! I had forgotten I still had them. So the corners of closets are not exactly prime space. If you have a 5'7" reach-in closet (interior dimensions 5'7" x 2'), with a wide doorway you get 5'7" of useable hanging space. If you have a 4 x 5'7" walk in closet, you can hang stuff along one 5'7" wall and along 2feet of one of the 4' walls. So it seems like you have 7'7" of hanging space. But 2 feet of that is in a "hidden corner" so all you really gain by doubling the square footage taken up by the closet is 2 feet of "hidden corner" space. The other option with a 4'x5'7" closet might be to hang garments along the two 4' walls and have the door in the center of one of the long walls. With clothing on both 4ft walls, you get 8 feet of hanging space but only have an aisle down the middle that is 19 inches wide. From the doorway, you can reach into a closet maybe 3 feet. That means you have about 6 feet of useful space; again anything hung further in will likely seldom be worn because you'd have to squeeze into the claustrophobic aisle to find it. Personally, I think that if the space available for a closet is smaller than 5x7, you're better off going with a reach-in and putting the extra sq footage into the bedroom. As for how much closet space guests need, most of us don't travel with THAT many clothes anymore. One foot of clear rod is more than enough. In fact, the most useful "closet" space I've ever stayed in was a guest room where the hostess had put 3 nice heavy duty hooks along one wall spaced a little over 2 feet apart and then put pretty decorated clothes hangers on them. On showing me to the room, my hostess told me, "the hangers aren't art-work, feel free to use them and if you need more hangers let me know. It was great b/c I didn't have to worry that I'd accidentally leave something behind in the guest room closet that, like most, was filled with the family's overflow. What most of us REALLY in a guest room need is a clear surface to set our suitcase on and sometimes an empty drawer...

I'd say the window locations are fine. With the closets, one way to make a room feel a tad bit larger is opening up the area next to the door. The rooms are standard size, but every little bit helps. So make the closet length shorter to maximize "vestibule" area coming into room. A downside is most people just love symmetry, and the closet door would not be centered on the bumpout. Another thing to realize about having "dead space" inside the ends of the closet, is you should have about 24" of wing wall where a dresser or nightstand would go, so they do not interfere with the door openings (which is where the non-symmetry comes in). I'm not sure what you expect to gain by changing closet locations, but did a copy/paste to show you. I believe I have the queen beds to scale. The room sizes are essentially the same. Toss-up. In both schemes I reduced the Linen closet to just a 16" shelf with flush wall to gain 8" in the hallway. Maximizing open space there seems beneficial.