Advice for a Double Bathroom with Pocket Doors

13 years ago

Hey everybody. I'm totally at a loss as to how to better lay out or redecorate this bathroom. It's in a condo with one door opening to the hallway and another door opening to a bedroom.

The walls are all floor-to-ceiling and there are pocket doors in each of the interior walls. The allows the bathroom to be separated into a Vanity/Toilet/Bath/Shower room and a Vanity/Shower room. Most of the time, though, we leave all the doors open. The door between the vanity and the toilet has never been closed, I don't think.

Current thoughts: cut out the wall between the vanity and the toilet or at least cut the top off to make that side more open (the left side in the bathroom picture below).

Here's a couple of pictures of my neighbor's bathroom with the same layout to give you an idea of the half wall idea (although it doesn't look too great in this picture..). Also, I have the same vanity and mirror in my bathroom.

I'm living in the condo with my wife but only plan to be here ~2-3 years and don't want to change it too much so as to lower the resale value. It's in a young professional area and I can see two roommates living in the condo, so having two-ish bathrooms upstairs would be good still. There is a half bath downstairs with a vanity and toilet.

I'm open to any suggestions at all - changing walls, vanity suggestions, whatever you want to throw out there.

Here's the current floor plan:

Here's a picture of the upstairs floor plan (rotated layout from the above image):

I can't wait to hear your suggestion!

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Comments (3)

weedyacres
13 years ago
I'm stumped. It sounds like you've got conflicting goals: open it up, but keep it separate for resale.

I know from my perspective, a bathroom with 4 doors would drive me crazy! I'd rather have a single door and have to wait for the other person to finish than mess with closing a couple doors every time I used the bathroom.

The only potential solution that I could see that opens yet keeps separate would be to encroach into the lower bedroom a bit and add a toilet. Then close off the door between the sink/shower and toilet/tub areas and have yourself 2 completely separate bathrooms. The interior walls for each could then come down. But I don't suppose adding a toilet in a condo is real easy.
nancyaustin
13 years ago
schwab, I am interested in your dilemma because we have a similar bedroom/bathroom layout---and one of the bedrooms is the master and the bath serves as the master bath. You might cross-post on kitchens, asking for the advice of the kitchen gurus who have amazing layout suggestions. Although their specialty is kitchens, they know layouts and have incredible ideas.
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Johnson Hardware is what the others companies are competing with. It is very well done. The 111PD is good enough for even most solid doors. The only shortfall they have is the plastic guides to keep the door from rubbing as it goes in and out of the pocket. The nylon guides rub on the door and can cause a wear line in the finish. The fix I have used for many years is to groove the bottom of the door using a slot cutting bit in a router, then place a short section of aluminum angle in the floor of the pocket that is captured by the groove in the door. No swinging and no marks on the face of the door. If you are careful you can place the angle a little ways in the pocket and stop the groove so it does not show on the door edge. If you have a panel door it may need to have the pocket side extended if you want the panels centered when the door is closed, or you buy a wider than needed door and cut down the edge that comes out of the pocket so some of the door remains in the pocket when closed.
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The question about cost depends on several factors. Is the bathroom on the first or second floor? Whats below it?? Of course where you are makes a difference as well. We added a master bath last year. It was on the second floor, over a office below and there was no plumbing there at all. The plumber had to bring the entire stack up from the basement and then put in toilet, tub, shower and sink and put the vent up through the attic to the roof. The cost was about $5000- which I thought was reasonable. This was just the cost of labor- valves and fixtures were extra. We also had to pay a carpenter to box in the pipes in the room below and repaint of course!!! (One thing always leads to another) We are in the Boston area. You already have plumbing in the area, as well as an air stack through the roof. Remember too that depending on the size and circumstance of your space raising up the floor might make replumbing much less expensive than either putting it into the floor- or under the floor as we did. Good luck
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olychick, thank you for taking a look. :) I'm relieved to hear you think a white shower pan is best. I am heading out now to find porcelain marble look tiles for the shower walls to pick up the gray as you suggested. I want a shiny finish to the walls. Tell me if you think that's a misstep. I am avoiding marble as I have a marble topped vanity now that is pock marked with etchings. As far as seeing myself in the vanity, yes, I think I will be able to do so. I was planning on a black framed mirror spanning the vanity. My current vanity is 32 1/4" high (as will be the new vanity) and when seated on my vanity stool my reflection is seen up to my chest. The only issue currently is that my knees are pressed against drawers. I failed to mention that I was thinking of using absolute black granite for the vanity top for two reasons: one being cost and the other being to avoid etching. Will doing so deviate too much from my inspiration? Lastly, I had the idea of applying pieces of beveled mirror framed by black molding floor to ceiling along the back wall and continuing behind the toilet (similar to this only floor to ceiling with the exception of base molding & crown): [Traditional Bathroom[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-bathroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_712~s_2107) by Northbrook Architects & Building Designers Michael A. Menn Thoughts? Suggestions? Thank you for reading this far. :)
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If resale is a factor, leaving the door may be helpful. Some people really insist on toilet privacy in a master, to the point of it being a deal breaker. On the reverse, I’ve never met anyone who loves exposed toilets so much they’d eliminate the house because it has a toilet room. A opaque glass slider might a good compromise to allow more light.
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astridh
13 years ago
I think you need to decide if you want one bath or two. If you want two baths, you definitely need to figure out how to add another toilet. Also, I think it would be much nicer to have a bigger shower.

Personally, I would rather share a nice bath with a roommate than have the chopped up room you have now. I would close off the door to the bedroom, remove the door in the middle, expand the shower another foot, remove all of the pony walls, and rotate the bottom sink around to mirror the top sink. I would also move a light fixture to the new center of the now-square room.

If it is possible to move the toilet, another option might be enclose the toilet in its own little space with a pocket door, maybe where the shower is now. Then, move the shower to where the lower sink is, and expand the upper sink into a double vanity. It can be nice, if two people are sharing the bath, to have the toilet in its own enclosed space.

Advice for a Double Bathroom with Pocket Doors

Comments (3)

weedyacres

nancyaustin

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astridh

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