Hi everyone. I love this forum. It's so helpful.

I'm building a house over the next few months and am working with an architect. Before we talk about the details of the bathrooms, I was hoping that you could help me figure out what I want. I've never chosen toilet appliances, cabinets, surfaces and hardware before; the existing bathrooms have always been fine. Now I have to start from scratch and am a little lost in terms of all the options available.

Hopefully you can eliminate most of the learning curve and point me to resources that will be most useful.

Our house isn't that big, only about 1400 feet. On the 2nd floor we have a bathroom shared by two bedrooms, with a combination tub/shower, a toilet, and a sink. For the next few years, this will be for us and our newborn baby/toddler/child.

On the ground floor is a bedroom suite that will be for visiting family and guests, but we will move downstairs if our family grows. This bedroom suite needs a bathroom with a shower, toilet, and sink. It will also serve as the hall washroom for guests, so there will be two doors, and the toilet and sink might be separate from another room with a shower and sink/vanity.

My wife wants separate design styles for each bathroom: one Zen and one Santa Fe. We're working with a modest budget, so lavish materials are out of the question. I'd prefer to avoid things that require maintenance, since there's a newborn in our lives now.

My grandfather can't stop speaking highly of his Corian shower unit. I hear good things about Toto HET toilets.

OK, that's about as far as I have gotten so far. Embarrassing, I know. So what do I do now? Do I just go to appliance websites and wander around until I find something I like? Are there websites that clearly present the choices that I have in front of me?