When I moved my 90 year old clawfoot tub, I borrowed a friend's motorcycle lift. That made my single girl DIY project so much easier! I just placed the lift under the tub, lifted the 300+ pound tub and set it in the corner, tiled in it's spot, and wheeled it back into place. Very slick! I don't know if you can rent one of these, but in my 5'X9' bath, it was super easy to maneuver by one person- didn't have to buy pizza and beer for anyone on that project!

Jodi, I'm assuming you probably have a tub where the drillings are through the tub wall rather than the rim? There are a lot of different handshower faucets (often called "telephone" faucets because the handshower resembles an old-fashioned telephone handset) that are adjustable to fit many different drillings. These are called "swivel arm connectors". For filling-up speed check the description for "____ gal/min @ ____ PSI" (for example, 8 gal/min. @ 60PSI" - that means that if you have a water pressure of 60PSI, the faucet will (should) fill the tub at the rate of 8 gallons a minute. Vintagetub.com has a nice selection of telephone faucets with swivel-arm connectors at reasonable prices and their customer service cannot be beat; for example, here is a nice one from Strom Plumbing, which is a well-regarded manufacturer. There are deck-mounted versions as well. To comment on some of the older posts, just in case anyone goes looking for info... This lovely little overflow cover gives you an extra inch or so of water depth. You have to caulk around the rim when installing it because it leaks if you don't. Obviously it works best if you use a twist-and-lift drain or (as we did) the truly idiotproof and easily repairable rubber stopper, it doesn't work with the type that has the lever on the overflow. Regarding missing feet: Vintage Tub now makes replacement tub feet - ship them one of yours and they will cast a copy of it. deabath.com has a large stock of old feet and may be able to find a matching vintage foot; they also cast matching replacements and MAY be able to hook you up with a set of four matching feet if all your tub's feet have gone astray. Cleaning around the tub: Plumber goofed the rough-ins (forgot to account for wallboard and wainscot!) and the tub ended up being about 2" from the wall on two sides. I used a Swiffer mop frame with a microfiber cleaning cloth to get underneath and around ours, because it would lie down completely flat. I had a long-handled scrubby thing that would also go completely flat and fit well into the tight space behind the tub. It really ended up being pretty simple. Now, for hauling that durn tub... two guys, both skinny as rails, moved my iron 60" clawfoot tub up a flight of narrow stairs pretty easily using a wonderful gadget called a Shoulder Dolly. I first learned about these because all the appliance delivery people and many movers around here use them. It was cheap and one of the best investments we've made, I can't tell you how many times we've used it and lent it out to many other people.

Used to be you couldn't give them away unless to a farmer who wanted it for a water trough, then they became really popular again. Perhaps you could go on Craigslist or Ebay and take a look at what other people are selling them for? I do know that most of the old ones are super heavy to move around.

Thanks everyone, By "very dated" I meant awkward - thats as kind as I can be. The best label I can come up with for this house style is contemporary mountain. But this bathroom was late 70's early 80's uber country, I couldn't see how it fit with the rest of the home. But after many many hours looking at design photos I think I can make it work visually, it just really doesn't seem very practical. But I guess practical isn't everything! We have had 3 pre-1850's houses before, so I understood them in that context, it just took me a while to see that it a claw foot could also work in a more contemporary setting. sushipup1 - I'm not terribly worried about the first round of interest rate hikes - maybe I should be - but when we bought in spring 2004 rates were on the rise and it seemed like houses were snapped up as fast as they were listed because buyers were trying to get in before the rates went higher. Anyway thats what I'm telling myself. Plus we are moving to the other side of the country and wanted to give DH time to settle into his new job before having to decide on a new place to live.