I don't have that particular tub but I have an MTI caribe air bath that also had a $300 upcharge for added chromatherapy beyond the standard. I got the added package because the cost wasn't that much compared to the price of the tub and it seemed like a cool feature and not one that I could add later. I have no idea if it will be something I use all the time or something I use twice until the novelty wears off, but now I guess I'll get to find out.

beagles: thanks for the info. let me know what you think about your added feature! How many lights are on the bath? when are you supposed to get your new tub? If you remember and have a chance, keep me posted! Enjoy! :) thanks again!

You know, I don't even know how many lights are on it. I only know it is electronically controlled by a keypad and its features are:
- Underwater lighting is provided by digitally controlled LEDs.
- A control pad allows selection of any of these individual colors:
aqua, blue, magenta, red, orange, yellow or green.
- The relaxing Aqua-Blue-Green Cycle gently segues through
the 3 colors.
- Or select the Rainbow Cycle, which gently segues from blue to
magenta to red to orange to yellow to green to aqua.

I am extremely excited about the whole tub though since it's an infinity tub!

Anyway to answer your questions, my tub is in my under-construction house, only lacking plumbing, floors, electricity and painted walls around it :) Our house is theoretically supposed to be finished in November but I can't see that happening. So, by the time I get the tub, yours will probably be long in already! If not, though, I'll update you.

I've enjoyed an Ultra Bain jet tub for ten years now. Absolutely no problems. I bought one 'just my size'. It fills in about three minutes. I opted out of any lighting, thinking it was just another place something could go wrong! (How do you replace a dead bulb?) But then, I'm only in the tub a max of 20 mins. and often in daylight hours.

Love the quick clean of the jet tub. Have only used the whirlpool in another bathroom for muscle strains.

beagles: Ahhh! An infinity tub, that is awesome! Sounds great! I just don't know what I should do. The one I am looking at has one light source, but I can add the extra 4 lights for another 300. Not sure if it is worth it. That 300 could definitely be applied elsewhere. We are in the middle of a new build too. And as the saying goes....."it's" the following phrase that gets us all in trouble: "It's only another $100, $500, $1000 or fill in the blank!" :) Seriously, this has been the most stressful thing ever! Even more difficult with 2 young children. Exciting, but overwhelming and I am so indecisive these days.
No, you will be enjoying your tub before I am enjoying mine. ;) Finishing up framing and roof being stick built, so taking a bit longer d/t that. Maybe Feb. is what we are being told.???
Thanks so much for the info! Let me know if you have any good advice to stay cool and calm during this process! :) haha!

No advice on staying calm and certainly no advice on staying in budget, lol!

If you are going to have to give up something else that you want more and that cannot easily be added later, then I would give up the added lights. You are already going to get the effect of having the chromatherapy and the incremental enjoyment you will get form more lights probably won't be that much or it would not be such a tough decision.

Then, next time you fall in love with something that you REALLY want that is just a little too expensive, you can use the $300 you "saved" on the top to justify the purchase :)

beagles: you know what? I am taking your advice! You are right! My husband & I keep asking ourselves..."but WHAT WILL we cut back on?" the problem is that our taste is too high, finding out quickly that what we thought were more than generous, higher set allowances on things such as: plumbing, lighting, flooring, appliances, cabinetry, etc... are without a doubt slipping away from us, easily going over our more than reasonable budget BIG TIME! Oh my, how easy it is to get carried away...
Seriously though, I am taking your advice and moving on. I have so many things to figure out....being indecisive doesn't help nor does the chromotherapy confusion w/ the amt. of light sources that will create a rainbow of colors to help w/ my mental state. ;) haha! Who am I kidding? These days I can barely go to the bathroom in peace, let alone a shower for 5 minutes w/o being interrupted. And I think I will have time to enjoy some light show while submerged in a bath full of champagne like bubbles surrounding me?!?!
Besides, that $300 was already spent months ago! haha! Thanks for the advice - seriously, moving on! Air bath decision made thanks to you!
And now, I will move onto the rest of plumbing.....Some Kohler...Some Rohl... The mixed reviews sometimes help, sometimes make it worse. I love GW, but definitely has proved to make my indecisiveness become out of control.
Then the appliance department....Ugh! The $ that gets dumped here is painful, but I am probably most excited about this department!
Enjoy the rest of your build...hope you are not feeling as crazy as I have felt lately! Hope all is going smooth - Take care!

I have the Bain ultra too. I love that tub however I rarely use the light therapy. You have to have the lights off in the room to really benefit and then you are in a dark room once you turn it off, so opt for a light switch near the tub if you go that route, I did not... I am not impressed with it so my vote is to re spend the 300 elsewhere. Maybe a towel warmer or upgrade linens, rugs bath accessories?

I don't think it was an option for the tub I chose. I do love the heated backrests!

TWINCREEKS I'm glad that you have a decision made! Have fun picking out faucets, appliances and everything else. Have you done lighting yet, that took my about 5 months to finish!

peyton: thanks for the post! that helps validate my decision more....so thank you! I figure...am I really gonna know the difference. One light source vs 4? I mean, really?!? I have never seen the amt. of light output on 1 vs 4 so, I cannot even comment on the difference if there is one, and if so, is it that significant to justify the extra 300. Who knows, I will never find out...I must move on! :-)

BEAGLES: Yes, thank you so much! OMG! I have been looking at plumbing stuff for months already...still I do not know what I am doing! LOL! Everything that I love comes with a pretty price tag. Same thing with Appliances! A small fortune in itself!
Please, don't even tell me about lighting...I have heard!!!!!!! I don't think our allowance here was anything to write home about, I have seen some fixtures that would wipe out that allowance after buying just a handful of them. And we are supposed to "light" how many rooms?!? I know we will be going OVER on this area. I hear everyone does! I have been pre-warned! I am NOT looking forward to this! Did your builder give you a certain amt. of can lights as a base with some phone/cable lines, etc.??? Our builder put in 40 some cans in our price to start, w/ phone/cable lines (don't remember exact amt.) and then some other outlet stuff that I can't think of right now, and then an additional allowance. I don't know if that is a good amt. or not? I will find out though soon enough. Any tips on lighting?!?

twincreeks, our builder built in something like 46 can lights. I hate can lights so I did not use any. Not one. (We didn't have a lot of discussion time before the blue book and bids or I would have told him that). We ended up using some of that money to offset the cost of in-cabinet lights and plug molds to hide outlets. We also had an allowance to have 5 TVs and 5 phones installed but ended up only installing 1 phone jack b/c we don't do landline phones.

Our lighting budget, however, as laughably small. Our builder budgeted us for $3600 for lighting in a 5000 square foot house! Ummm... we needed a 4 ft chandelier for our great room and for most chandies that big, that alone would have wiped out our entire allowance! And once we got rid of can lights, I ended up having to buy 22 chandeliers/ceiling fixtures (I even put chandies in our closets!)

I bought ALL of my lights online. I used fatwallet.com cash back combined w/ coupons for stores like Bellacor and Lamps Plus and I did not buy any light unless I had first comparison shopped everywhere. I also bought some really cool art deco fixtures and a murano glass light from eBay that were antiques that ended up costing way less than I would have thought and way less than some more "boring" lights from lighting stores. And then I spent everything I saved on 3 very expensive James R. Moder crystal lights for my kitchen :)
I don't know if any of this will help, but my best deals were on some Progress outdoor lights that normally sell for like $286 (and every other light in this line sells for that price) oddly on sale for $62. They are gorgeous in person and we needed 10 of them so we were VERY happy to save that much on something we loved:
http://www.1stoplighting.com/shopping/4-9-162-48143/product.aspx?source=googlebase&kw=free-Progress%20Lighting&CAWELAID=191789910

And on a discontinued Progress Versaille collection light: http://www.amazon.com/Progress-Lighting-P4233-43-Fifteen-Light-Chandelier/dp/B0014HAPGM

I also loved Shades of Light which had some really unique fixtures (http://www.shadesoflight.com) You can sort by price to weed out the $8000 ones and the under $500 ones are very pretty.

Sorry for not making the links active links, but maybe that will help!

We got a great deal on appliances by asking our appliance guy to just let us know when stuff went on sale and not being brand loyal. We got an $1800 miele 6 burner cooktop for $1200 and a very expensive bosch integrated fridge for $4000. I don't cook so I didn't care at all and just went w/ whatever the guy had.

My best advice when you are looking for stuff is don't be afraid to go custom. Our custom 3ft concrete farmhouse sink w/ integrated drainboard was only $800 compared to the $1500 kohler cast iron sink and I got it in my colors. Our custom cabinets cost about $20,000 less (not a typo) for our kitchen than Candlelight cabinets. Custom glass knobs for the kitchen were $15/knob as compared to like $22 or more in some places.

Hope some of that helps and doesn't overwhelm you more!

beagles: Thanks so much for the very valuable info! That was great! I will definitely look into all those lighting sites that you mentioned. I hear that cans are sort of point less especially when they are put in 20 foot ceilings. (as in a Great Room) That they barely put out any light and really serve no purpose. ??? I guess now you have me thinking....
I guess I don't feel alone now regarding the lighting allowance. We will have 4000sqft. finished w/ potential of 2500 in unfinished basement. We were given a 5k allowance that I was complaining about. Did you know ahead of time where you wanted all those hidden outlets? Did you envision the set up of your furniture & if lamps were gonna be used, where you would need the outlets? (as in the floor) What about for charging cell phones, and all that sort of stuff? Bathrooms (did you have outlets in cabinets?) How did the walkthrough go? Did it take forever? No landline, huh? It seems more and more people are getting away from this. My husband says we really don't need one...but I cannot imagine not having one. Although we definitely use our cells the majority of the time.
Next week we have a lot going on. Framing almost done (maybe another day or two) then Plumbing mid week, HVAC, and electrical soon.
What do you think about Kohler? Toto toilets? I love the country collection from Rohl, mixed reviews though, so many choices...Polished Chrome vs Polished Nickel, or Satin/Brushed Nickel. Any HVAC advice? With your square footage, are you doing 2 furnaces or zones? (maybe you don't need too much heat though depending on your location!) I could ask a lot of questions, so I better stop for now...:)
Thanks again for all the lighting info! Will check into all of it! Thx! :)

Glad to help.
We are not using any cans b/c not only do I think they are pointless but IMHO they kind of ruin the look of a ceiling (swiss cheese effect). Every ceiling on the first floor of our house w/ the exception of the kitchen and rooms like the dog room is either vaulted, has a trey ceiling or is coffered, so there was no way I was putting cans in those ceilings, especially since I also did chandeliers and medallions. I'm already kind of annoyed that there will be speakers in the ceilings, but we had to have those and I found fancy speaker grills that will go over them.

Our electrical walk through took about 3 hours. Our electrician was impressed and said for most people it takes all day. I knew exactly what I wanted and what was going where so it was much faster and easier.

The hidden outlets are in the kitchen because I would not allow for any outlets at all to be visible in my backsplash. This was a huge hassle with the electrician and inspector. On the one wall it was easy (albiet kind of expensive) because we just used plug mold. However, on the other wall, we had no upper cabinets so we had no place to put the plug mold. I wanted to put the outlets under counter, the inspector said no, I thought up like 10 other ideas that everyone vetoed and finally we ended up w/ the electrician using the shallowest possible boxes to put outlets in the panels on the cabinets on either side and my cabinet maker is going to make me a little piece of wood that matches that fits over the outlet and that velcros in place that I am going to put on after the inspector leaves.

We didn't put any floor outlets in because I don't want the look of my hardwood floors messed up. We will mostly be using the chandeliers for lighting and we also have lighted cabinets in every room that will be on a timer. Those will go on automatically and I am hoping between those and the chandeliers, we will have enough light w/o lamps. If we need lamps, I'll put them on the furniture along the walls and just put them on remote controls.

Bathrooms, we each have outlets in the top drawers of our vanities.

Cel phones will charge in the laundry room charging station (photoshop mockup):

As to the other questions:
We used some kohler in our house. Kohler purist faucets, I think maybe kohler tubs in our other bathrooms. I wasn't brand loyal when it came to plumbing, as long as it was something I had heard of. We used whitehaus for our kitchen faucets (w/ a tapmaster!) and I got the delta touch for the dog room.

Bathroom is moen (IODigital for tub and shower so we can turn water on w/ remote control and digitally get it to appropriate temp and fill level, etc.) We used polished chrome in all the bathrooms and nickel in the kitchen. We had both of our kitchen farmhouse sinks custom made (one out of concrete, the other out of marble).

I did not get a toto toilet. I spent so much on the tub and shower I was not going to spent a lot more on toilets so I got the cheapest kohler that looked good and that did NOT have those buttons on the top to flush. I wanted a regular lever! I like to put a decorative something or another on the top of the toilet tank and I didn't want buttons getting in my way.

HVAC- are you using fiberboard ducts or all metal? Our builder originally had us for fiberboard and we upgraded to all metal. My fiances dad is in the HVAC business and he strongly encouraged us to do research before letting them put fiberboard ductboard in the house and I am very glad we did. If you are using fiberboard, do your own research on this before you make up your mind. The metal costs more, but just do your research first!

We have 3 zone heat and cooling (basement, first floor, upstairs). We have geothermal heating and cooling, backup propane, and a boiler to provide radiant heat for the kitchen, sunroom and master bath floors.

When you do your HVAC, see if they give you any control over where registers are placed or what size. We have one that had to be made shorter because it interfered with trim and two returns that have to be modified to vent out of the cabinets that are going in front of them because our HVAC guy did not listen well to us. Be insistent if you have such concerns that you know where HVAC returns and vents are going before they do it. There's not much flexibility, but at least you can work w/in whatever flexibility you have.

Just my two cents. Toto toilets are worth it :) My parents put them in a beach condo reno (4 toilets) and then came back to their main house and put in all Toto (7 toilets). Nothing fancy - just the Drake - but they work SO MUCH BETTER. It is truly something if you haven't ever used one . . .

Just FYI - with the type of house you are describing, 5k is not adequate. I am not a fan of can lights, but also really not a fan of ceiling lights in general. I certainly wouldn't want them in every room. We took can lights out of most places (only kitchen and baths (small 4" cans above sink to help with illumination in addition to sconces beside vanity). I think can lights are important in kitchens and great in hallways. Other than that, I can do without :). Our house is designed so many rooms have light on two sides and light at night is the only issue. Instead of cans, we did switched floor outlets so we could turn off lamps at once and still get enough light.

I have had nothing but problems with my Bain Ultra jet tub. My tub would turn on randomly throughout the night, so I would be in bed and hear air rushing from the tub in the middle of the night. Within a year of installation the lights on the keypad stopped functioning. Called their customer service department and they will not honor their warranty. Apparently their electronics and keypads are poorly constructed. The Bain employee I spoke to suggested I replace the tub altogether.