I know a room to the studs looks like a mess, but when I walked into the bathroom I said to myself: This is beautiful framing.
We were delighted to find that the dropped ceilings and cut outs were just "creative" solutions and not there for any other reason. The space felt so much bigger once we brought the ceiling to it's real height.
The steam shower had not been done properly the first time, so we dropped the height of the ceiling in the steam shower and pitched the ceiling so the condensation could roll off the ceiling appropriately. That's what the box on the ceiling is. (upper photo)
The trick is to pitch the ceiling so that when you sit on the bench in the steam shower, the drops of water that form on the ceiling don't drop on your head. That's why you pitch the ceiling with the low part away from where you sit. How do you figure the pitch? It's a formula based on ceiling height and size of the steam shower enclosure.
