Broken Houseblogger

Progress on the house and the physical agility test both just got a major setback. I sprained my ankle at work on Wednesday night... It's not a bad sprain, but I'm on light duty at work, and I have to keep it elevated, ice it, and wear a brace. The doctor said that I should bounce back quickly, but I'm worried about the agility test next weekend. If I can't pass, I won't be considered for promotion for another year. I should be healed enough to work on the house on my days off (Sunday through Tuesday). I'm glad I've never been seriously injured; I don't think I have the patience for it!

On the upside, my sedentary work environment has given me lots of time to think about our next major project: the bathroom remodel. I've been tossing around different ideas for the bathroom since last August when we bought the house. I thought I had all the criteria covered until we found that a 60" bathtub is too small. Here's the current floor plan (the closet space is drawn a little larger than it actually is in this one):

In the current layout, the space between the vanity and the tub is right around 2 feet, and it creates a bottleneck. The vanity is also huge and hogs visual space. There's too much storage in the bathroom (amazing, huh?), and the cabinets also eat up floor space. We use maybe 30% of each cabinet. The bathtub is cheap, shallow, and uncomfortable. And, last but not least, the bathroom is just not us or suitable for the house.

We have quite a few requirements for the new bathroom, but we want to work mostly within the existing space and plumbing. We'd really prefer not to move the toilet. We want a linen closet accessible from the hallway; there's already a door there, and we don't want to get rid of it. The wall between the bathroom and the closet has to stay mostly intact, since it's a load-bearing wall. We definitely want to get rid of the bottleneck between the vanity and tub. This is what I've come up with so far that involves the least amount of rearranging fixtures:

Input is VERY welcome....!

And now I should stop getting ahead of myself and start thinking about the living room again...