thanks to all who have posted so far, especially Eric. We can probably save/budget down the road for a kitchen redo, or do part of it ourselves. Additions would be a little harder for us except finish work (floors, tile, etc. Can do drywall even but would need to find time to do it). What that kitchen has is a U shaped layout, not too bad except there are overhanging cabinets between a small dining/family space and the kitchen. It's a counter/pass through kind of setup where someone can sit at stools and talk with the person in the kitchen....except the cabinets hang down so the person in the kitchen has to look under them. We would likely tear those out and relocate the stovetop to the perimeter wall and make that pass through an island. Then that entire space could become kitchen/dining. It is possible we could still move out a wall on that (kitchen) side of the house down the road too, we are in Hawaii so all the construction costs are much, much higher than mainland. So jealous of all the posters here who can put on a large extension for less than 50K. Plan A or Plan B will cost us about the same. We don't plan to sell and move anytime soon, but should we need to we're leaning toward sq. footage instead of just extending current bath and upgrading the kitchen. Our neighborhood is about 20 years old so people are beginning to redo those rooms as the fixtures and appliances are ageing. We redid all the appliances about three years ago with stainless finishes, new faucet/sink, and redid the countertop Corian, so the kitchen is livable - just need to clear out some clutter and make smarter usage on available storage space. We could paint or restain the cabinet doors to freshen it up. A few neighbors are creating the "big bang" kitchen now but I'm not certain a 70K upgrade will improve the value that much as a new neighborhood is planned about 5 miles away within the next couple of years. Would we love to live in a "WOW" kitchen, of course. But as with most people we have to make a decision on where it is best to spend the money for now. We could feasibly also add on a 2nd story in future years, but we prefer the single story and if we age-in-place as planned, the new bath will include wide accesses and no-curb shower.

Thanks for the replies! Good point about keeping things in proportion with a 12" accent - looks like three tile wide mosaic might be the way to go. I like both options, but was a bit worried that three tile wide looks a bit chunky. But keeping things in proportion seems like a good idea. Edges will be trimmed with those aluminium edges. There will be a niche, but due to the constraints of our townhouse (back wall of tub is a shared wall with next door and the left wall is an exterior wall), the niche will be on the right wall (where the fixtures are) and will be two smaller vertically stacked niches (I kind of prefer the niche to be less visible anyway, as then people won't see all my bottles :p). So the back tub wall will be flat, without any disruptions to the vertical accent. The door to the bathroom is on the right side (when looking at the tub) at the far end, so when you enter, you sort of see more of the left side first than the right - so I thought I'd put the vertical stripe off-centre to the left. RE waterproofing - my contractor has used DenShield with mesh tape over seams/joints/edges/nails and then RedGuard on top of that

Horizontal sounds good t me. If you had real wood planks they would be a lot longer than 36" and you would cut the ends. Make sure you have a skilled tile installer who can lay this out first, then cut. The cuts should be in the corners so it doesn't matter. Your real challenge is going to be making sure the variety of designs on the tile look right since you're cutting off a lot of design that was intended to make it look right. That can be accommodated by a skilled tile installer who knows to look for that. You'll also have a lot of waste to make it look right, but it will be worth it. BTW, not so odd to have the vanity in the bedroom in houses built in the 80's. It was a thing for some reason. Didn't seem very functional to me, but in my past I looked at a lot of houses that had that. Good luck on your project.

I like them done the same direction and you don’t say what size , I also like the exact same tile on the floor and the shower and often IMO best done in a stacked patteren since a 1/3 offset IMO is not as nice with a large format tile and 1/2 does not work.