Having had them combined, I agree with what's been said. Consider whether a barn-style sliding/rolling door, or bi-fold, plus stacking even full-size washer/dryer, and a tiny wall-mount wash-up sink and/or shower stall would make the separation easily possible; it will be well worthwhile, particularly if you want guests to feel comfortable using it. And, rather than making the laundry the mere closet, I'd make the bathroom the mere closet. In the laundry, one seeks fresh-smelling and dry - a convergence and dispatch of often-intimate belongings from multiple members of the household, always in progress, milling through noisy cyclings and beepings, nagging for attention, and demanding work -- often intimates hanging in plain view, and/or shedding lint; one wants space to shake out and sort and fold. In the bathroom, one seeks privacy in an isolated corner, and/or transport from cares elsewhere, often in steamy wetness, without the distraction of others' belongings, or fear of being in anyone's way; one wants to disappear. Also; think aersolization of effluent. It's easier than you'd think to separate the rooms, even if you have to walk through one to get to the other, and well worth it. They'll still be adjacent; and you can easily shed clothes from one into the other. Your kitchen and bathroom both use plumbing, but that's no reason to combine them.

Benjesbride, where does she lose the 2"? It appears that she is not aware of the loss. Rebeccamomof123, are you pulling permits to do the work, or do you live in an area where the city/town/county inspectors are going to become aware of the work and expect to come in and inspect it? Or is your area more like where I live and anything short of an addition is something that no one will notice and that inspectors don't drop in when workmen are around unless it is really obvious that a big job is being done? The reason I ask is that your clearance for the toilet-to-tub distance is right on the edge of being okay. Some towns will not let you get that close. If you could get inspected by the code enforcement officer, or if you are doing this with permits, you need to draw this up and get it approved before assuming it is going to be approved. If you need to steal back a couple of inches to make it fit, one option is a wall-hung toilet. Your contractor opens up the wall behind your toilet and puts the tank and flushing works inside the wall (not the stuff you have, it is custom made for this purpose) and then the toilet part actually hangs off the wall and never touches the floor. It is much nicer for cleaning. All of Europe has been doing it this way for years, I hear. http://www.geberitnorthamerica.com/en_us/target_groups/enduser/products_enduser/toilets_2/concealed_systems_1/for_toilets_1.html

Thanks, mayflowers! I met with my KD this morning. It was a very productive meeting. Chose the tile pattern for the shower (B), decided upon the Kohler shower pan in Sandbar (Dune is a close runner up) and the lay-out of the shower fixture and the bench (angled, ending 9" shy of the glass to make install easy and also easy to clean the glass), mirror sizes, light mounting heights.... Yep, we knocked my "but what about" list down to size. Yay! She said toe testers were done all the time in Canada when she lived there (was a KD there, too) but they aren't done as often here, for whatever reason. I don't think it will be necessary for us to have a toe tester because of the fixtures we chose and where we're installing them. I'll review our plan when I take showers this weekend to see how the new set-up will work and see if there are any hiccups with it. This afternoon, I went out to United Tile up to check out alternative accent tiles. Yep, your comment about the brown in the mosaic got me thinking. I asked a rep at Contractors Furnishing Mart this morning and she said, "yes, it can be variable and you might end up with more brown than blue tiles." Uh, oh, don't want that, especially since the brown is a golden brown, which doesn't work well with the shower pan color and other choices. I came home with 4 to consider but as soon as I got them in my light, I immediately kicked 2 out of the running. One was wishy washy and the other was holy guacamole bright! I forgot to ask pricing but unless it's out of this world outrageously expensive, it's likely going to be doable since we don't need a lot of it, our install pattern is uncomplicated and our other choices are easy on the budget. Choice #1 is Lunada Bay, Tozen series, in Iodine, in 2 finishes. Here it is in silk (non-glossy). Here it is in natural (shiny). I'm leaning towards silk. Tile choice #2 is also Lunada Bay but in the Agate series in Pisa, silk finish. The sample I brought home reads more green than what I saw in the store and than it is in the above pic but my sample is 1/2 x 4 brick so there's not nearly the color variation as there at the store and in the pic. Aquarius may or may not work but there were other yummy colors in the same series of glazed tile so I'm sure to find a color for the 1/4 round. There can be color variation in these, too, but they shouldn't go brown at all. They might be more green than blue or vise versa but that's not a problem. Thanks, mayflowers, for voicing your concern. If you hadn't, I would never have known that my original choice could end up with a lot more brown in it than I want. That could have been a big oops at install!

Your sketch dimensions are a bit confusing. In the first one, it looks like the rooms were drawn with 6" per squares, but then the hall doesn't follow that. The second one appears to have a scale of 2' per square and does seem more in proportion, but both are missing a number of dimensions and aren't drawn precisely enough to guess. If you give the dimensions for everything that needs to stay (so exterior walls, plumbing you don't intend to move, etc.), we can try to help you with configuration options. Remember that walls have a thickness ... Bathrooms can be added on a slab, but it requires planning and trenching into the slab to lay the plumbing, so I can understand why you might want to avoid that. It would be helpful to know which parts are on the slab more precisely than the back vs. the front, particularly since I would have thought where you initial suggesting adding the small bath would be in the back ... suzanne, I think what you're referring to is the door between the two rooms.