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And I won! It has been approved! I can now go rebuild a modified version of my original rock garden. It will have more “green”, including one section of moss. Since there will be actual living things in my garden, that means I’ll have to work harder at making sure everything stays alive, but, I suppose I’m up to the challenge. And, if not, I can always just buy more plants …

I think there were 3 factors in getting my HOA to relent:

I showed a willingness to work with them, and let them be involved in the “design” process. Everybody likes to feel like they are part of something; no one likes to feel like something was thrust upon them unexpectedly.

I played the race card. And it wasn’t even that hard! Once I made mention to one HOA member that I built the Japanese rock garden “in celebration of my heritage,” he passed along the sentiment for me. And everybody got the hint that “celebrating my heritage” meant that I didn’t mind calling up the ACLU to see how they felt about my situation.

I joined the HOA Architectural Review Bard. Yup, that’s right, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Just the threat of me being at the meetings every month, as a peer, was enough to soften their hearts. I had every intention of submitting a new “plan” for consideration at every meeting, until they gave in. And if that didn’t work after a few months, I was gonna start making “motions” at every meeting to repeal the “no rocks in landscaping” rule. Hmm, I actually might still do that. Because, honestly, who even cares? Why make silly rules when you are the people that have to enforce them?

So, I guess fighting the good fight does sometimes work out. And I hope that as a bona fide HOA ARB member, I’ll be able to help others fight the good fight as well.

Ok, so I’ve been playing with my bathroom. I have not yet come up with any designs that involve moving the closet wall; those are next.

I was doing some reading online about bathroom remodels, and it turns out that moving plumbing can be difficult to impossible, depending on your house. So these three designs try to keep the toilet in the same place (the most difficult plumbing to move), and keep some of the other plumbing in place.

This option keeps the toilet in the exact same place, gives up a sink, and trades the existing tub and shower for “corner” tub and shower units. I believe that all existing plumbing could be easily used with this option.

This option also moves the door from the bedroom to the bathroom a teency bit, and doesn’t require that the closet door be removed. (I removed it in this diagram, but mostly cuz I was moving stuff all over the place before I settled on this.)
(I know that pedestal sinks are the new rage, but I got to have my counter space, as well as under-sink storage.)

This second option sorta keeps the toilet in the same place, it just rotates it. The extra-long, double sink vanity is maintained, and the tub is moved from one side of the bathroom to the other.
The shower is traded up to a slightly larger corner shower.

This requires moving the closet door to the bedroom wall, and moving the door into the bathroom just a teeny bit.

This third option rotates the toilet, gives up a sink, and requires moving both doors. The gain is in getting a larger corner shower, as well as getting a corner tub (not any larger, but perhaps fancier looking).

Votes? Comments?

Apparently, my bathroom was a point of discussion with my husband and his coworkers today - and so it has been requested that I post 3D pics of my bathroom in its current state.

I would like to remodel my bathroom, and am open for any suggestions! Doors can be moved, and we only use one sink in the vanity, so I don’t see a need to keep the double sinks (unless it helps with resale value). I also don’t use the tub (mostly because it’s a whirlpool tub with completely moldy nastiness in the jets), but having no tub in the bathroom reduces the bathroom to a 3/4 state, and I suppose it’s never a good idea to downgrade the status of your house.

Master suite floorplan - I included the whole thing, so you can see where you might be able to move doors to (i.e., the walk-in closet door to the bedroom/closet wall).

The bathroom measurements are about 8′ x 11′.

Here are some 3D views: