Bath Faucet Found

For some reason, I've been having loads of trouble locating an appropriate, traditional faucet for the bathroom. Most on the market are too modern, too pricey, or too ugly.

Martin and I each have our own sets of requirements, which naturally conflict with each other. As far as I can tell, his boil down to "no strange looking tub spouts" like the one featured in this otherwise appropriate Kohler model.

My requirement is avoidance of the Dreaded Tub Spout Diverter. The modern person mainly takes showers, not baths, but the diverter concept has 'tub filling bath' as its default. This is a bit of a design flub, requiring "action" for the most common activity, but defaulting to something I do twice a year (whether I need it or not, of course).

With the tub spout diverter, every time I want a shower, it's necessary to pull up the diverter while turning on the water, inevitably getting drenched with too-hot or too-cold water in the process. Doing the Diverter Dance requires coordination, which I am sadly lacking. And what do people with only one hand do??

Unable to find anything that both met our collective faucet needs and generated some enthusiasm, I ordered this adequate yet inoffensive faucet from NEED Plumbing Supplies.com, only to be emailed a day after my order was submitted that the faucet has been discontinued. SO WHAT'S IT STILL DOING ON THE WEB SITE????? And, I might add, even after this email was sent to me, so you'd think this stale, old item would be brought to their attention, it's STILL on their web site!!!

So the search continued. My fave was this gorgeous Porcher faucet, but its retail price of $594, it blows the budget at even the best discount faucet web sites.

But then I found it at faucetdepot.com.....a small selection of three-handled faucets! No messy diverter, period appropriate, under $200, and we could agree on it! The American Standard model has options for either chrome or porcelain handles, while the Price Pfister model has cute little "H" and "C" labels in white on a chrome background. And while we don't really like the showerheads, that's easy to change.