There are a lot of large tubs that can never be used due to lack of hot water. Or, there aremany short baths as there is no hot water to peak the tub once it cools off because the tank doesn't have the recovery rate to handle it. Gas is absolutely the less expensive to operate. I'm a fan of tankless and just installed one in our new remodel (kitchen, 2 baths, laundry). They are not inexpensive but there is no energy consumption when you are not using hot water and for your tub, it is ideal. I have a bathfill controller on mine. I punch in 40 gal and 104* turn on hot only and the unit fills the tub with the 40 gal of 104* water, turns off the water and beeps to tell me my bath is ready. I mean, how could I do without that:) Pretty cool.

No need to feel rebuked. Your initial answer started with "depends." That's still valid. Plus your Instapot has more flexibility than most slow-cookers and does a good job with lesser quantities. Slow cookers vary in the design and placement of heating elements which is a reason for a generic ½ to 2/3 recommendation for "best" performance. For some slowcookers, the design and placement of heating elements may be a problem with small quantities getting too hot or not hot enough. Other slow cookers will work fine with quantities of less than half full or more than 2/3 full. My two Crockpots do. But, getting back to gsshal's question, "how big?" Depends on a lot of factors, but here are some rules of thumb. Are you feeding small armies of ravenous children and ranch hands, do you regularly have large gatherings, or are you planning on making a month's worth of meals to portion and freeze? You might consider a Nesco countertop roaster which can be converted to a 30-quart slow-cooker and buffet server. Hamilton Beach and several other brands seem to have units with 8.5 and 10 quart capacities. Are you cooking for large families of growing children who consume mass quantities of whatever you make and make allowance for leftovers? Do you often cook 10 pound pot-roasts or large briskets? For those things, you may want a slow cooker in this size, Otherwise, the most readily available slow-cooker models are around 6 quarts capacity. Some are 5.5 quarts, some 7, but those size variations won't make noticeable differences to most cooks. Slow-cooker cookbook and on-line recipes generally assume a generic slowcooker in this size. This is what most folks wind up with. If you are only cooking for one or two, want to make smaller quantities and avoid leftovers, and will never cook anything of any size (say, beef pot roasts or chicken quarters), then you might consider a 4 quart model. Go below that size and you are pretty much looking at party-dip heaters or maybe overnight oat cookers. (Heat control in some of the smaller units is not very good.) Or, are you mainly interested in the foolproof fire-and-forget convenience of beans, grains and stews cooking while you are out working for the day? For that, I second nightowl's suggestion that you consider an Instapot. A lot of digitally run capabilities mean it handles smaller and larger quantities well , has a lot of programming capabilities for both slow cooking and pressure cooking, and is about as fire-and-forget convenient as you can get these days. Many slow-cooker recipes work very well in pressure cookers and take a small fraction of the time for equally good results. So, say you did not feel like or get around to prepping and loading the slow-cooker before going to work in the morning? Put your ingredients in the pot when you get home, run it in pressure cooker mode, and your beans are done in half-an-hour or so. Also, the reports seem to be that the Instapot's "keep warm" function works better than the warming functions on many of the newer slow-cookers. For example, I have a 30 year-old rice cooker that can hold cooked rice at around 150°F all day long but the the "warm function" on my Crockpot "Smartpot" seems to slowly ramp up to a bit over 200° which is a slow boil at my altitude. I recall ( but cannot immediately find) a longish thread on this over on chowhound a couple of years ago.

why don't you get some painters tape and mark out the size you think you'd like, or the max that you can use there. don't forget chairs and having to scoot them back to get in and out. what if you used a round table and got one w/a leaf when you want bigger? You have so many rectangular lines in that one area, using something round will soften it a bit. I think something like this would be perfect

The height of your ceilings doesn't matter. People don't focus on things higher than 8'. It's not that they don't see your ceiling, but their attention doesn't stay there. It's why, in most cases, pictures, mirrors, etc. should be centered between 58 and 62 inches above the floor; that's where people focus. Baseboard size should relate to the trim around your doors. My door trim is 3.5 inches wide. I could have used the same size for baseboard, but chose 5-inch trim because I like the visual weight it adds. Ultimately, the size and style of trim is a personal choice. Buy one piece of the 5-inch baseboard and set it against a wall where you will see it for a week. If it doesn't grow on you, use smaller trim.