I think you should remodel to suit yourself. Unless you are planning on selling the house soon, and you are actually remodeling for the new buyers. In which case, line up the new buyers first. If you don't like baths why would you want a tub? As long as there is a second bathroom with a tub for someone with kids, I doubt it would be much of an issue. My sister remodeled her bathroom and opted to take out the tub. She hates baths. Me, on the other hand, I love baths and insisted on a soaking tub in this remodel. But I bought this house without a tub in the master, cuz it's a super duper neighborhood. In this remodel, we lost a bedroom and a half bath on the first floor but we are making the house really comfortable for our family. It's wonderful to free yourself from worring about resale. Worry about resale too much and for sure you'll be dying to move :-) I dunno, this particular style of question comes up so much that I think a lot of people must end up with spaces they can never really love, just because another person in the future might not agree with their remodeling decisions. Just remember, everyone who tells you that they would never buy your house because it didn't have a tub is just that person's deal, not everyone who will ever be shopping for a house. My sister would buy your house! I myself would never want to buy a house with blue vinyl siding. However, those blue houses get sold. And when I was house hunting, I saw LOTS of ugly granite that no doubt the owners put in for "resale". Huge turnoff for me, but those houses still sold. In the end it always comes down to cleanliness, correct market pricing, and location. Unless you're a house flipper, life is too short to make decisions based on what somebody, somewhere, may or make not like in the future. Good luck!

Well, phooey. I taped it out in the bathroom with blue tape last night and it looked like it would fit, but with too many nos, I'm back to the drawing board. Interesting thought, Vix. Right now we don't actually have a toilet room, so much as a separate toilet "area" (there's no door, and the closet takes up too much room to add a door), but it's on my agenda to create one. In our house, it's very necessary. I generally use that bathroom to try to FIND privacy, only to have 3 people (and sometimes the dog) follow me into the bathroom. I'm looking forward to having a door that locks and a fan so that I don't have two little people handing me the TP and asking whether I'm doing number 1 or 2 (oh, and the 1 year old likes to flush while I'm ON the pot; so I've got my own special cold water washlet), while DH decides that he absolutely has to shave and brush his teeth at that exact moment. Now if I take a hike to the guest bath on the other side of the house, all three just follow me AGAIN. Sometimes when I have insisted on locking the door in the guest bath (no way to do that with our LOUVERED -- why??? -- pocket door in the master), my one year old plopped down prostrate outside the door and cried until I open the door. For my W/C, I want to put in a LOUD fan; no whisper quiet for me. Maybe I'll even add a radio. :) The way I'm seeing it, I can either get rid of the long vanity altogether and live with a fairly small vanity, plus a tub and shower, I can skip the tub and live with the kids' bathroom on the third level as the only room with a tub, or we can bump out that weird corner jog, which would give us an additional 49'' X 27'' space -- enough to fit a 5X3 tub, 5X3 shower and keep the two vanities. But that sounds very expensive and will require carefully removing and replacing the siding to match the existing. DH's response to all this was "why do we need a tub?"

> We would love a tub that allowed us to face the same direction as well as each other, but in terms of freestanding tubs, that just doesn't really seem to be an option. Now this is more like it: It's freestanding (though I don't care for this particular surround) and the backrest is what I find the ideal shape for two people side by side, with good back and shoulder support for both. Most tubs with this shape are like 5 feet wide which is not what I want; this one is just wide enough for two. The taper at the other end helps preserve water without getting too crowded, but is still wide and sloped enough to lean against when you want to face opposite directions. Still, it's the side by side configuration I like best. Two-person tubs where you face each other look great in pictures and in the showroom. Then you use one in real life only to find you have to SCREAM AT EACH OTHER to be heard over the roar of the jets. Although air jets may be a bit quieter than the water jets I've used. I could do without the huge ledge at the end of this tub though - what's that all about? I too can't find a tub that gets everything right.

As I read more the Americast is making me nervous. Of course that is what my contractor wants to install due to the weight, but since our old tub has not been replaced for 40+ years I think that may be the case here. Tiling around will make it impossible to remove and replace. So the question is how to install it properly.