What are your goals for the closet? That might shake some posters out of the trees. Personally, I'd do double doors, maybe even split half way up, so you have upper and lower double doors. OK, while I'm dreaming, bottom half would be a laundry bin. Top half storage. The way the tile is cut is problematic. AO may be able to get you a similar color in octagon and dot. Otherwise, what about buying white octagon and dot, then painting with color-matched epoxy paint before you grout? Alternatively, a clever threshold (clever because It would have to project out a bit into the room bc of that unfortunate tile cut) could bridge the space into the closet. You could get the threshold made out of anything that looks simpatico to your overall bath; marble is common, or black granite, travertine, painted or stained wood (easier to shape and cut into place!). If you did that, no need to match tile for the closet floor. In that case I'd get floor paint and paint the closet floor a color that gets along with your tile. I have a closet in my bath and the depth makes it difficult to get full use of the space in it. We use a lot of bins and trays, so we can pull them out and get what we want, or access less frequently used items stored behind them. That tile, by the way, is a beautiful, distinctive color. It may be harder to work with than many of the white tile bathrooms you see here, but I hope you keep it. It looks great! (And best of all, it doesn't look like a million other bathrooms.)

I'm doing the same at my home now. I am going pex all the way, except for the stub outs for the fixtures. Pex to copper is fine, but I would suggest that you eliminate the galvie entirely. You do not have to run the "home run manifold system". With my lay-out it is better. YMMV. You can pipe it conventionally. What I like about the manifold system for me is that I am running small diameter tubing to each faucet. That means I will not have to wait as long to get hot water to a faucet. If you look at the cross sectional area of 1/2, 3/4 and 1" tubing, they are .19, .44 and .77 sq in respectively. That all equates to volume that you have to move out before you get hot water. Just something to think about.

"Is it necessary, or a good idea to replace the areas of the house that were not included in the remodel, since the house is 25 years old since it is M copper?" Yes, do a total replacement, as the copper has reached it expected life expectancy. CPVC is widely used in mobil homes due to it's flexibility and lack of out-gassing at the glue joints. "Also, the plumber wants to use several island vents, including one in a bathroom. He doesn't want to go through the roof." You need to have a short and serious chat with your contractor about quality of workmanship, because this is BS. "And yes I think this is all about the general contractor saving money, my husband is afraid that if we push him too hard about the pipes he will charge us more on change orders/items that he has completed, but will not give us a price on." In many states all change orders are required in the business and professional code, to be fully priced upon presentation for signature. But, why would you sign an authorization to proceed, without knowing what it cost? "We ask him how much adding or changing something will be, instead of telling us he just builds it without giving a price or change order. We have asked him several times to write it up, but he does not, Its really irritating and yes my contract states that he must give us the change order in witting, before he changes anything." If you know an attny. better yet where he lives, don't wait until monday, race over to his house and break in.

Here's my take: 1. It may be getting to the end of its useful life, but it sounds like there is nothing wrong or malfunctioning at the moment. My water heater is 17 years old and is still functioning just fine, although I realize it's living on borrowed time. So when it fails, I'm ready to replace it. 2. Your 12 year old water heater will already have a good level of insulation, and, since a new one would be running on electricity also, a new tank is unlikely to be much more efficient. Recent efficiency gains in water heater technology mainly have to do with tanks that have combustion systems, like natural gas. So I doubt that you will see big energy savings from switching to a "more efficient" unit...perhaps a couple of percent, if that. If you switch to a smaller tank, there will be some savings because a smaller tank has less surface area to transfer heat, but the savings will not knock your socks off in your climate. 3. What mainly drives costs is that the groundwater coming in to the water tank must be heated from its inlet temperature to about 120 degrees F. In places that get cold in the winter, that inlet temperature can be below 40 degrees F, which means that the water temp must be increased by at least 80 degrees F; however, you are in the warmest part of the U.S. and your groundwater is close to 80 degrees F already, which means that you only need to use about half as much energy to get the water up to 120 degrees F. And, since your water heater is located inside the living space, the standby losses will be less than someone like me who lives in a place that can approach freezing in winter and has a water heater in an unheated space. 4. It's true that water heaters can lose efficiency over time, particularly if you have hard water and you get mineral scaling building up on the heating elements. However, it's quite simple to replace the heating elements and rejuvenate your tank for not much money: Heating element replacement 5. There's nothing wrong with having an 80 gallon water heater for two people. There are only two of us in my house and ours is 75 gallons. And when two of us take showers, one after the other, we start to run out of hot water. What I recommend is you look at what the energy efficiency label says on your existing tank about annual operating costs, and compare it to the label on a couple of possible replacement tanks. Then compare the amount of annual savings to the total cost of replacing your existing tank now to see how many years (or decades) it will take to break even. I'm not saying that your plumber is lying to you, but he does have a financial incentive to convince you that there will be big savings to switch out your tank soon. My advice is to wait until the old tank fails and and then get a new, efficient one. How big will depend on your lifestyle, and how long your shower runs daily. If you never run out of hot water, you could certainly downsize some, but don't end up decreasing it by a huge amount or you may end up unhappy.