Here's a very quick idea but of course I don't have exact sizing. Assuming the bedroom was originally 23' 5" long, I'm guessing the new bedroom would be just shy of 14' deep.

Wow, cpartist -- that is something I hadn't thought about, but I like it! I imagine that would be a costly remodel, though.

Can you draw in your bedroom furniture so we know what you have to work with?

Oh, good idea! Here it is. The thing in the bottom corner is wire shelving that holds our TV, and is very flexible. We can wall-mount the TV, or move the TV to a different room. We don't watch in our room much at all.

I also highlighted in green where the window really is; it's not so close to the corner as it was in the original plan. The mule chest fits just between the two windows, with only enough room to have a floor lamp on either side.

ETA: Those are guesstimates based on how I see the room when I'm in it. Queen sized bed with head and footboard, nightstand on either side; wide mule chest; and bureau that takes the whole length of the wall by the walk-in closets.

Do you think this kind of layout would be possible (and affordable) if we do take the two closets by the bathroom? New bathroom entry from the hallway. I'd want a bigger shower and smaller tub. We'd be trying to stay as close to 20K as possible.

My husband just wants to replace the shower/tub combo with a shower, replace the vanity, toilet, and tile floor, with no moving anything or expanding the space. But it's still so tiny compared to the rest of the house. I think it needs to be more spacious to match the spaciousness of all the other rooms in the house. Even the half bath downstairs is roomy!

ETA: Even if we just replace the tub/shower combo with a shower, I think it will be too small of a shower. Plus, I really, really don't like the current entrance to the bathroom right by my bed. I want to move it to the hallway somehow (the area marked 8.75 feet).

Our house is very similar in the sense that our entire house is HUGE with a tiny master bathroom. We wanted to expand it, but ultimately we decided to tear out the tub & shower & just do a large tile shower & update the rest. It wasn't worth the cost to move everything and create a new space. My husband was willing, but I decided that a large shower would make me happy & I wanted to use money for other projects. We did install a pocket door which created a lot of space. I'm glad we decided to scale back our original plans.

I love cpartist's idea. I would talk to your contractor before nixing it; lots of money can be saved by choosing more modest materials. You'd have your separate toilet room and I love having access to the closet from the bath, esp if one of you is off to work earlier. The one thing I noticed is that bed #5 lost its closet, which would prevent you from calling that a bedroom, I think.

We have a 4BR septic, which already prevents us from calling this a 5BR house.

We got a Japanese soaking tub, Fuji 40x40, it fits into a small space. It's in a crate in our basement, so I can't say much about it yet, I can't wait.

if you go with cpartists idea, maybe you want to switch the bathroom and the closet, that way the plumbing is already there?

Pippiep,

Since your septic can't support a 5th bedroom, then maybe you can steal space from the closet in BR5 and reconfigure the doorways to get a larger master bath as shown below:

I moved the master door to keep the master bath entrance inside the master bedroom. Otherwise, it would not be considered ensuite. You could add a small closet to BR #5 but I have not shown that here.

zmith, that layout is what I had in mind, though I really do also like cpartist's idea. I brought this up with my husband, and while he's pretty sure now that he wants to leave the footprint, he's open to talking to a contractor about these other options.
He's also fixed on not combining our closets, though! He likes having "his" area and "my" area, and also feels that by losing the dividing wall, we'd give up too much hanging storage space. We both hang 99% of our clothing.

I'd lose the 5th bedroom and have a huge bathroom/closet instead.. Of course I'm someone with no kids so # of bedrooms doesn't phase me...

I can't do that because I work from home and that's my office. We don't have an office on the first floor.

I like CP's layout as well. In her layout, you could switch the closet and bathroom locations to keep the plumbing close to the original locations.

Yes in my version you could switch the closet and the bathroom. My reason for doing it the way I did was so the bathroom got more light in it. A closet doesn't need light in it, but a bathroom is always better with light entering it.

You can always put a dividing wall down the center of the closet to give each of you your own space. However if you don't mind sharing, it's just as easy to divide the closet in half.

I also realized that the garage is below my room (two stories down). Right now, the toilet, closest to my bed, is several inches away from the wall... (grrr)

We suspect it was done that way to avoid having pipes go down into the garage. Where the toilet is, straight down two floors, is the basement. We're not sure if this puts a crimp in any ideas to expand into the bedroom...?

In this pic, the green lines show the joist direction, and the red line shows approximately where the cement wall is in the basement. The back of the toilet is flush with that red line, not flush with the bathroom wall.

Egads!!!! There is NO floor under the master vanity! No tile, no subfloor, no nothing. It was cut away!

Kitchen ceiling has been torn down (for kitchen remodel) and GC points out that we were looking at the bottom of the vanity cabinet, and look! There's your toilet paper stash!!

I'm bumping this back up because I've been thinking about scaling back. We are reno'd out after our kitchen, and now bogged down with painting nearly every room in the house. We also have to take out some carpet and install hardwood.

The thing I hate the most is the sink right across from the toilet. We do use the bathroom at the same time, but there is barely enough room for toilet and sink use simultaneously. Plus, I hate having a mirror right across from the toilet.

So, I'm thinking of keeping the vanity as a single vanity, 48", but moving the sink closer to the shower. Then we'd put tall cabinets across from the toilet for towels, toiletries, etc., which we currently keep out in the hall closet.

Though I still worry about the huge size discrepancy between the bedroom and bathroom.

If you read back through this post, it seems like there is much you dislike about this bathroom. If it were me, I'd live with it as it is now and wait until I could redo it (when your energy and finances recover) and make it into something I love.

Budget is not too much of an issue... it's that my husband doesn't feel the need to enlarge the space. He thinks it's fine as is. I think it is silly-small compared to the master bedroom and compared to the house as a whole. We made some improvements already that make it very useable. Just thinking that maybe changing out the vanity and adding storage now would make it useable for even longer.

What about taking bedroom 5 and making that your bathroom and use the current bathroom space for a master sitting room?

We have the same issue but more because of needing a space for wheelchair in the older homes we are looking at purchasing. Have you thought of a wet room? It frees up lots of space :)