I believe the architect of this home, Al Beadle, built mostly custom homes. I believe the EIchler homes were more tract homes. From what I have seen, most of Beadle's homes are large for the era. This home was built for the owner of the Safari hotel, and his family, which was recently demolished. You can see similar features in the hotel to my house. Here is a link that might be useful: safari hotel

Sorry it took so long to get back...busy week at work and gardening all weekend :) I appreciate all your input and I know I need a visual aid, but all I have is my graph paper with my pen sketch LOL. I need to go high tech! After careful thought, I am considering swapping the porch and the laundry room. The house faces southeast, so the laundry room is currently on the southwest side and the porch is in the back, or the northwest side. Both are going to have to be rebuilt, so it's an easy swap at this stage. If I open up the room on the southwest side, I can have it open to the kitchen and get better light into both rooms. The laundry/pantry/mudroom can be on the back, with less light. This would allow me to put in a second door, from the hall bath to the laundry area, eliminating the need for the half bath (and saving some money!) :) The load bearing wall is between the two bathrooms, which means the master bath is not getting any bigger (without a lot of expense) and is staying about 6' x 10'. The hall bath is a much more flexible space. I can make this larger and have the claw foot tub and toilet on one wall (on the back) with a window over the tub. The hall door would be opposite the tub, the sink (now the counter could be 6' instead of 4') would be next to the hall door. The door to the laundry room would be on the left wall, between the sink vanity and the toilet. The shower in the master bath is more practical and although I wear make-up, it takes me all of five minutes to put it on in the morning, so no big mess in the bathroom. I work from home (and live on a farm) so a little eyeshadow, liner and mascara and I'm good to go! LOL Oh, I should mention the master bedroom is on the northeast corner of the house. As you come in the front door, the stairs are straight ahead. As you walk along the stairs, to the back of the house, the hall bathroom door is straight ahead (but all you'll see is the tub) to the right is the door to the master bedroom. You walk by the master bath, as you enter the bedroom "suite" if that's not too fancy a word for a fairly small bedroom. I am hoping to have a small screened porch off the back of the bedroom area. French doors off the back of the bedroom will lead to the porch, with just enough room for a few chairs and a small hot tub. That is the one thing my husband wants in the new house...besides dibs on the basement! Thanks again for all your help :)

Hi: we are empty nesters with a City Apt (3 baths 3 bedrooms): where my bath is part of the Master bedrm and hubby uses another one as "his". We also have a rural turn of century country cottage with 3 baths on multi level so we SHARE the master bath (and it is the largest). What you recently described with the split config and some passthru/shared areas resonates and we find has worked well. Since space does not seem to be a constraint, you may, for resale purposes, want to consider a bath-spa. Meaning add some spa elements. I know you said you dont need more humidity or heat...but steam enclosure or ready-to-install-cabinets may not add considerably except for the actual steam generator. Mini dry or steam sauna rooms are great (we have a Finnish-style sauna...it is about 8x5 and is a separate room. Next to it is a small 1/2 bath) Also in our 'hood, a dual bath could count as two and run into code issues. So i am sure you'll be checking out how your town regulates Here is what we've found as best configs we've lived with or had the pleasure to experience: - separated closet areas are ideal..even with a shares common entry. Also our requirements for lengths and drawers are different (just consider the accessories or shoes!) - that said, i dont like the closets being super close to the water. That is humidity from the shower or tub in the very near vicinity. Further, my SIL and BIL rebuilt their master bath with her closet being direct accessed from the bathroom. I found it nice but not really conducive to full dressing...too small and i wanted to be out in the open more where i could stand back from the full length mirror - the real reason we use separate bathrooms is the toilet and you've addressed that. we always prefer bathrooms where the toilets are a little separate...be that a half door or semi enclosed. And we really really treasure Windowed bathrooms. More windows the better - The more isolated the toilet can be from the other areas (layout wise), the better the other areas work and feel clean, fresh,comfortable. some bathrooms we liked even had a small hand washing sink in the toilet area. - A Toto toilet special flush toilet with a SOFT CLOSE lid for us is a MUST!!! once you have it (now others make the soft close lids too) you wonder where its been all your life. Same for the way the Toto flushes low and high volume. Unfortunately their color and style choices are limited but do check out the functionality and try to replicate. The power flush with minimal water use is good. - I am not fond of separate bidets (and we travel abroad alot so we see these) One more thing to clean and plumb etc and addl space taken up for something not very attractive. Instead, the Toto-type bidet function can be added to a hi-end commode. For a price, of course. - two tubs two showers feels odd. And you've addressed this too i think. A large shower with ease of access, open feeling and glass or even outside light is best. A rain head in shower is nice but not in lieu of the regular. We are very eco conscious so we arent into the multi jets --- my BIL recently did a walk in large shower with lots of jets; i cant say that it enhanced my shower experience because i would rather just finish up and not use the water. And i didnt like sloshing thru a large wet area to find a place to dry my feet. So large without everything being subject to water jets was my observation - When i want to use water, well for me its a deep tub WITHOUT jets ---nothing to disrupt luxuriating in hot bubbly scented water A handheld as option with the tub is nice (to rinse off, to rinse hair, etc) - Double or separated sinks are a plus -- really it is the separate mirror each of us is after! plus separated banks of drawers or spaces. My bath has bureau drawers and there I keep my lingerie so that i can dress the underthings right there. That said, some common space for the replenish supplies and for towels. - We love thinner waffle weave towels rather than big thirsty Turkish ones...because the former absorb quickly and in humid weather, we can use 1 a day and not create immense stax of laundry. So, we both like having a stack of towels right there in the bath rather than in a linen closet down the hall. - Lighting is important. Not just the usual over sink lighting that is good for working on the face. Some softer moodier lighting or lights on reo-stats are good. I saw mirrored cabinets spanning double sinks that had soft lighting running along the bottom. Left on, such as the evenngs, it was a nice glow and almost meant i didnt have to turn on lights brightly every time i went in. - Audio or even a small flat panel feed to your bathroom? that will take special planning if the latter. For sure, i love listening to the radio and would love to have some thing in the bath rather than turning up my clock radio so loud! Enjoy

I would opt for bigger bath and one shared closet. Would overall be less cramped for space. If you do the closet with a wall closet system with various drawers and hangers there is more than ample space for you both. If not, then you have too many clothes. In my closet I have 3 drawers and a hanger above those in multiple areas, then I have hangers for long clothes, and we have corner shelving and shelves for storage on top. Lots of space. Shoe rack on the floor under the long clothes.