I have a clear picture in my head of what this bathroom will look like when it's finished ... getting it to that point is going to be challenging. The space is 61" x 92". It is the original bathroom to our 1848 house, added as a one-story addition outside the back door when the house got plumbing in the 1920's or 30's. This is the right side of the room: and this is the left: The door is 28", opening in and to the left toward the tub, almost centered on the wall. Everything in this room except the basketweave tile floor is leaving. The toilet is old, the finish on the cast iron sink is worn through from years of dripping water, and the ceramic sink base has a crack that was repaired with packaging tape. The clawfoot tub will find a new home ... I plan to build a step-back cupboard in its place, to provide some much-needed storage. We have 4 other full baths in this house. Having a clawfoot tub in the basement is cool, but not very practical. The tub was added by the previous owner, so we don't feel guilty about removing it. We are going to remove the window, too. This bathroom addition is buried inside a larger 1960's era addition, and the window looks out into the garage ... with a lovely view of our water system. By taking out the window, I'll have a bit more depth to work with to build a better cabinet where the tub was. And I'll have a place to hang my inspiration poster. The electric is finished. We removed all the scary old wiring and the seriously illegal junction box behind the sink. Now we have a box for a yet-to-be-chosen light fixture, a new switch, and an electrical outlet (which the room didn't have before). For plumbing, we have to replace all the supply lines. The original galvanized supply was discontinued when the bathroom was remodeled during the 1960's construction. The copper replacement lines were run in the weirdest way, and the toilet supply leaked, so we're replacing them. The galvanized sink drain was still in use, but it has rust on the Y that connects to the elbow of the sink drain ... so it looks like we will have to see if we can cut it and attach a modern drain to it. Removing the whole thing doesn't look to be an option, because it goes down below the floor that we want to save. I have to call a plumber. I really want to reroute these radiator pipes, and put them into the wall. They were running outside the wall ... across the wall over the toilet, down the left-hand corner, and across the baseboard to the radiator under the window. This means that we'll have to shut down the boiler ... sigh. This is the my inspiration for the stepback cupboard. I know I got this photo from a decorating blog, I just don't remember which one. I love the size and proportions of this piece ... mine will have 4 doors, no drawers, and no glass. I haven't decided what color it should be ... maybe a vintage-type red? We're going to use this medicine cabinet. I bought it years ago at a thrift store, and I've been holding onto it until I could find just the right place for it. It has a beveled mirror, which I removed before I remembered to take a 'before' photo. I've stripped more than my fair share of paint off of things during the restoration of our house, and restoring and repainting this piece should be pretty straight-forward. BTW, if you're working on something and you're tempted to just paint over the hardware .... don't. Here's where I could use some help. I have my heart set on using a sink like this: (without the side extensions). Though I can't find one right now, I know they're pretty readily available if I'm patient in my search. I want to build a vanity to coordinate with the stepback cupboard, install a maple top (I have a bit of old maple basketball floor stashed away for just this type of project), and inset the sink. Has anyone seen a sink like this done this way, does this exist only in my imagination? There are two new sinks that may give me a similar look, if I can't find an old one in good shape. A new sink would be DH's choice, BTW. The Kohler Gilford, which comes in 24" and 30" widths. and this sink from American Standard, which only comes in 30" I haven't seen either of these sinks in person, but I lean toward the style of the AS sink from what I've seen in photos. I'm concerned, however, that 30" will look like I've plunked a kitchen sink into the bathroom, and the 30" sink only leaves minimum toilet space in the 61" width of the room. For this reason, I feel I should investigate the Kohler 24" model. Wall color? Probably some sort of ivory beige with white trim. I'm not a beige sort of person, but it feels right in this room. Any thoughts? I'd sure like to hear some other opinions. I have this sneaky suspiciou that there's something I may be missing. Thanks, Connie

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...

The cold and wet depend on the size of the shower. I have a 36"x60" shower and the controls and head are at one end, the controls under the shower head. I just reach in and I do not get wet. Now if the shower was a larger area where you would have to walk in to access the controls that would be great to have controls near the entry. But a 36x48" shower will be just fine I would think with the traditional set up. @mayflower, are you the one with the 36x48 Kohler pan? Or is that Cat-mom? Here is my 36"x60" shower with glass doors, not problems with the shower controls under the shower and I don't get wet reaching in. This is before the porter was installed to hold the handshower, that is seen on the floor.

You're right, the peach colored tiles do not work with the floor tile. The grey shower curtain and covering on the toilet don't work either. You say it's a rental, so your only options are to paint or wallpaper the wall above the tile, use a floor covering, and change out the shower curtain and window treatment. I did a Houzz search for "peach and yellow shower curtain" in Shop, and here's what came up: Using a patterned fabric with the two colors will unify your room and bring your eye to the fabric instead of the floor. You could also get a curtain and sew a contrasting trim on it to unify the color palette in the space.