OT, but in the circumstances you describe, I'd suggest to the condo board that their crappy venting was presenting a health risk, and opening them to massive liability. If they fix the vents NOW, they may avoid having to gut the entire building to address mold issues. If that didn't have the desired effect, I'd design a room that could accomodate an electric de-humidifier. It will be tough in a room that small, but completely worth it. Until you have healthy air, the design of the bath is a bandaid on a tumor.

Wow!!! I'm so impressed with all of these ideas - keep them coming! I think each would work, but would make for a very different look - high contrast, traditional, MCM, etc. I shared all of these ideas with my husband and I think we're both leaning towards subway tiles in the shower - either light gray or white - and probably oversized as Nancy in Mich suggested. Each hex pattern is about 6 inches in diameter so they're quite large and we agree a larger subway would balance it out. Any ideas for grout color if we go with white subway? A light gray grout? My husband loves the idea of accenting the shower tile with black or graphite-colored trim and bullnose pieces to tie in the dark accents in the floor tile, so we'll likely do that, as well. Pricklypearcactus, we definitely want frameless glass for the shower but still waiting on our quote... scared to open that email. :) And I think brushed nickel is the winner in the fixture department, though I may throw in a little gold by way of accessories to warm things up a bit. We're still trying to decide between a few things: - Pickled wood, white or dark gray painted vanity and either floating or shaker-style - Solid white or marble-type (quartzite?) countertop - Light gray or gray-blue on the walls, but I think this depends on the other finishes. And jrueter - thanks so much for including photos. That really helped us visualize how the gray subway would look. We'd never even considered anything other than white! Williamsem - I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished product, but you'll have to be patient with us. We're buying everything now, but not installing until after Christmas. :) Thanks again all! And please do chime in with any other ideas/suggestions - you've been SO helpful!

Many thanks to everybody who answered, you have all been very helpful in clarifying my very muddled thoughts. Here is a hopefully clearer description of the situation: The house is a 50's ranch style, with 3 bedrooms and a hall bath (4.5x8.5 ft) clustered on one side of the house, and the kitchen, office/den and another hall bath (4x9 ft) on the other side of the house, with a great room in the middle. We plan to stay in this house as long as we can, but we are in this city for my husband's work, and if something happens (although unlikely with his kind of job), we know we'll have to move somewhere else; therefore, we'd like to make updates to the house while keeping resale in mind. Our (excellent) realtor said that for resale we should have an ensuite. After reading the comments, I have to clarify with him if he thinks a lack of ensuite will narrow down the market significantly, or if we 'simply' would not get the best price for the house. Most houses in the area are old (in the whole city actually), and we saw plenty without ensuites. We saw two of the neighbors' houses, and they did not have ensuites. This is what we considered: 1. Redo the bathrooms with the existing footprint (not that we have room to change anything inside), but we can go far into making them pretty, 2. Add a door from the master bedroom to the hall bath next to it, and close access from the hall. This I think would be a bad idea, not only because the people in the other two bedrooms will have to go across the house to the other bathroom, but also because the master bedroom will end up with windows on two walls, three closets on another, and two doors on the fourth side. Not restful. 3. Add another bathroom next to the master bedroom where the closets are, with one closet door transformed into a bathroom door. This bathroom would be 4.5x12 ft, although it could go to 5x12 if need be (but no more, because we'll hit a big window), which will have a shower but no bathtub. We talked to a professional who said it will fit fine with the caveat that the toilet will likely be the first thing you see in front of the door because of the current clearance requirements. 4. Build an addition. This again I think would be a very bad idea, since it would be blindingly expensive and the house is already on the higher side of square footage for the surrounding area. We will of course fix everything that is broken. The interior doors are the original 50s doors, hollow core dark wood look with lots of scuffs and holes, and they were cut short to fit the now non-existent carpet, so I would qualify changing them as fixing what is broken (and they bug me every time I look at them... ). The windows are a perk; we are still divided on those. I tend toward option 1, while my husband is going for option 3, although he agrees we do not need another bathroom. The reason I feel ill equipped to make this decision is that I'm originally from Europe, and even after so many years here I feel mildly perplexed about the North American love affair with bathrooms. Our previous rental was built in the last ten years and had a huge ensuite which I didn't like. I found it hard to keep as clean as I thought it should be, and it was so large I felt as if I was doing my business in public. Given the bathroom pictures on Houzz, I'm clearly in a minority. Your comments help ensure that I don't miss anything that might otherwise be obvious, so thanks again. And extra thanks to whoever makes it to the end of this post...

This is just my 2 cents, I'm certainly not a contractor. I would get rid of the shower and shift the vanity over to the right so it's in the middle of the wall. You should be able to do so without having to move the plumbing. I would also make it a good enough size so it can hold your linens as well. But not so huge that it looks ridiculous. I think building a closet in that corner won't look quite as clean. You can save that money and put it towards the vanity and working on the rest of the bathroom. I also think you can totally get rid of the bathtub and put a big shower there instead. Would be pretty great to have a spacious shower. You can do the combo tub/shower thing but it won't look as good obviously. Hard to make style suggestions without knowing what the rest of the house is like. For some reason though, I do picture darker wood flooring and white walls. Not so sure how wood flooring holds up in a bathroom though.