No layout expert here, but:

- Your french door to the balcony bangs into the double doors for the bath, or at least it looks that way
- What is that empty space to the right of the shower as you're facing it? Seems like a waste. Either make the shower bigger or see if you can squeeze in a bath somewhere. Just enter the shower from the front instead of the side
- If you made the linen cabinet shallower, but going across the whole wall marked "optional door," you might be able to scootch the vanity over to the left and relieve that tight corner coming out of the toity.

Just my 2c, which is about what it's worth!

Ah, that is an important point I should have mentioned.
The shower was drawn to be a walk in doorless.. so that area on the right as facing would be a tiled part of the shower almost.. I think.. not 100% sure.

We are not sold on the doorless idea..but it seems to be the rage in our area right now...

I am tempted due to the classic cape cod nature of the house to stick to a more traditional shower.
will a doorless shower screen 2010 in 10 years!!!

Not sure I understand the concept/point of the doorless shower. Will that tiled 2'6" space have a drain hole also?
Doesn't doorless also make it draftier?

I would add 2' to the shower proper, enter from the vanity side, and 6" to the toilet section, making them both more spacious. Think lots of room to add a bench to make shaving your legs so much easier! :>)

I would probably put the shower and toilet together in a separate room. Especially if the shower is doorless - it will keep the heat in better in the shower. I would swap the toilet and shower space with a door at the end of the vanity area - if you use a pocket door it could still be pretty open to the rest of the bath when the door is open.

My first thought is that the toilet is not too accessable, and the vanity corner is awkward.

How about moving the toilet into the space immediately to the left of the opening to the bedroom- where the linen closet is now. The double doors would have to become a single.I would put a pocket door on the toilet enclosure, and have the toilet back up to the bedroom. (Make sure to insulate the wall) Five feet long is enough for a toilet enclosure.

I would then flip the vanity to the opposite wall so it starts immediately to the right of the opening into the bath room and runs along the outside wall of the addition. that leaves you the 7'7" wall for an enormous walk in shower. Alternatively, you could do a "wet area" tub and shower arrangement. That is you could have a tub that you enter from the shower. I see the shower on the left, tub on the right, both 5' long. With a 36" wide tub you could still have a 4'7" wide by 5' long shower.
The open spaces in the room are all together so it will feel much more spacious.
Sorry I don't know how to draw it out on the computer- I hope it is not too jumbled to follow.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Now I have to research plumbing along exterior walls... and see if that will be a problem.. there are a lot of exterior walls in the new space! We are in Zone 5..

I am also not sure how high the ceiling will be in the space..

Nora, could you let us know which of the walls are exterior? And what is below this space and onthe other side of the interior walls?

I really like blueberry's idea of putting the toilet room up closer to the door. Also, a 36" wide pocket door (maybe with glass to let light move from bed to bath)would be very pretty and functional there. I just don't know if the bath is 'grand' enough to warrant a double door entry?

How about something like this:

Love it busybme, thanks so much for the visual. The three walls in the vanity/shower area are all exterior... raising a roof over an enclosed sun porch beneath...on the other (left side) would be other bedrooms.

Do you mind telling me how you created this drawing... I have tried using a BHG software, and powerpoint.. but I am no good.. maybe I just don't have the right SOFTWARE!

Here's a quickie drawing, not to scale at all. A but crude, but hopefully it'll help.

Obviously the closets can be scaled a bit. The entry door to the bathroom, I made that a single instead of a double. No real need for a double.

the closets on the left wall of the bathroom, they can be scaled as well. The one on the countertop can be shallow (by moving the back forward, not by recessing the front), like a medicine cabinet. The other two can be pantry storage of linen closets.

Toilet compartment, code requires a minimum size of 30" wide by 60" deep. The 60" depth s okay, but wider is appreciated, you can go 36" with no problems. the door needs to open outwards.

The shower has a 45-degree opening. It can be doorless.

The two closets outside the shower, the depth is off in the drawing. Linen closets, whatever you want them to be.

I didn't include any windows.

I like the toilet not being on the wall shared with the bedroom for noise considerations, flushing/refill sounds in the dead of night, etc.

the "wet wall" for the shower can either be the wall on the immediate left or immediate right of the shower opening. That'll keep supply plumbing out of the exterior walls.

{{gwi:1482330}}

Mongoct's drawing really utilizes the space well- eliminates the 'hallways' which I think are a waste of space. You now have lots of room for towel racks/robe hooks. Only thing missing is/are windows.

I like blueberry's idea, encapsulated by busybe's drawing. Get rid of the space-wasting hallway to the toilet and have a gigantic shower.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of windows in the shower, but that shower is large enough where you could get away with a window in the bottom right corner of the shower.

A second window could go over the toilet.

Here's a revised version where I put "medicine cabinets" to the left and right of the respective sinks and added a couple of windows. I think this version works fine.

{{gwi:1482331}}

For grins I made a couple of more changes, this time pulling the front wall of the toilet/shower forward. I'm not a big fan of this since it turns the toilet compartment into a tunnel, and by losing the open 45-egree door to the shower, it blocks some of the light from the window in the shower from entering the bathroom. AND it makes the main floor area of the bathroom too long and narrow. But hey, it's free, so here you go:

{{gwi:1482332}}

One last idea regarding the windows would be to take the two linen closets in the bottom right corner of the bathroom and instead of having them as floor-to-ceiling closets, stop them at 36-44" high and top them with a slab of stone, like a storage cabinet. Then have a window above that cabinet higher on the same wall. Then you could lose the window in the shower.

Mongo

Thanks so much for all your ideas and help!! When I saw your first drawing Mongo, I thought it shouted 'window seat' to me..(which I liked the sound of) but an even taller cabinet with more storage, with a counter top too would be even better..

I will let you know what happens.. we are consideing doing one more drawing.. which will blow out the whole right wall to the right the 8 feet.. and eliminate the entire existing bath which will increase the current bedroom size.

We were trying to avoid that change to the roof line (since I can't quite envision it!) We want to look at it on paper first.

Thanks again for all the help!

I would still love to know the software you all use to draw these plans!!

I used Adobe Illustrator, it was a quick 30 second line drawing, I saved it as a pdf then I exported it as a jpeg so I could upload it to a photobucket account.

I wanted to let you know that your original layout is almost identical to my daughter's bathroom and it really works out great. The only differences are she has a tub where you've drawn the shower, there's not a door on the 'toilet area' and there's a door to her bedroom where you show 'optional' as well as a second door where your double doors are shown.

Here is a link that might be useful:

The only problem I see with mongo's drawing is that the toilet area will need to be at least 3 feet wide - so once it is drawn to scale the shower area won't be quite as spacious as what is shown above.

Thanks so much ncamy, for posting the photo. That really helps me visualize!!

and with all space, (what is it 3'3" you have to add for a wall...) it looks like it is a much smaller space that we had originally thought!!

We are now looking at blowing out the wall with the french doors all the way to the right, flush with the other wall. It will eat up our deck, which we do not like! so still thinking!