PLEASE put dimensions to the plan to the inch. Why are the doors swigs outward? What are the window sizes, the walls, the doorway passages every inch, please. A cabinet/vanity can be MADE to any size. Nobody can help without inches. Baths are codes, clearance and INCHES.

A towel doesn't need a bar, a good hook is fine.........

Put the inches on your plan so that someone can actually help.

Dimensions added! Doors swing out because they are existing and were built that way (and there isn't room for them to swing in, at least in the closet). They work well as is, though, and the space is needed more in the bath and closet than in the bedroom, since we couldn't put bedroom furniture there anyway without blocking the doorway. We are not modifying any walls/windows/doors, though--our house has a historic designation and we've already been through a lengthy design review process. Just looking at the configuration within the room to be sure there aren't better solutions than what we've got right now. Thanks!

I prefer the 2nd option. you will appreciate that tall cabinet.

You need full dimensions on the plan. I would move the door into the bathroom, like Jan showed, but don't have those dimensions to know if it could work.

Is this going to be a conventional clothes closet? What direction does the window face? Can you change any of the door positions?

Thanks--we're just working in the existing space, so not moving the doors. We could reverse the swing for the bathroom door, but there's not much gained by that since then it takes up bathroom space but doesn't free up usable bedroom space.

The closet is a pretty conventional closet, considered a "walk-in" when it was built, but certainly not by today's standards! We like it fine, though, and aren't changing anything there in this project, except to add a little carveout of space from the bathroom for some added storage, since we don't need the space in the bathroom. We may in the future turn it into a more traditional reach-in closet facing the bedroom and open the back half to the kitchen as laundry/mudroom space, but not right now. (That is a benefit to Option B, though, since if desired we could push further into the bathroom at that point.)

Not sure I understand the question on which way the window faces--the one in the closet is a push-out casement, set 54" up the wall, and the window in the bathroom is a traditional double-hung 30" off the ground.

The existing room is 103" x 82" (and the closet is 35" x 82"). Added these to the plan.

My question about the closet with the window: my sister's house had a large west facing window in her closet and her clothes were fading until she put a blockout curtain on the window.

Ah, got it. No, it's just a small window set high in the wall for ventilation (original to the house, as is the closet configuration itself--electrical was added after the house was built, so the window let you see what was in the closet, and in fact we still do not have a light in there!) It's not what you'd find in a modern house, but we've lived here for 15 years and like it. The clothes rods run along the top wall so do get some sun, but we haven't had issues with fading.

That said, we may consider putting an additional rod in the new space and making the main closet a bit more open--haven't finalized how we want to use that space yet, but we chose the depth to allow for that possibility. We did look at several design options that moved the closet entirely to make it a more traditional reach-in closet, but they turned this into a much more costly project and introduced different tradeoffs--no slam dunks. (The bedroom is only 12' x 12', so there is not much space to spare, and it works well currently; some of the proposed closet locations improved the bathroom layout but created problems for the bedroom.) The whole house is very small and was tightly designed to use every square inch back when it was built, so there really isn't much space to borrow in adjacent rooms, unfortunately.

Moving a door is not that much work. I'd definitely move it to get a substantially better layout as Jan posted.

If you were willing to move the door you could get a better vanity and a full wall of hanging in the closet. If you are in the United States the interior doors are not part of a designation.

Diana makes a great point about older walls. The lathe may be on the door frame. A reciprocating saw used very carefully is necessary or a hand saw that can cut through the metal. It's a gamble only you can decide.

Yes, that is a big reason we are not moving the door. (The other related reasons are that the wall the doors are on has original moulding that would have been complicated to replace since it would have had to be custom cut, and most significantly, we want to keep the stretch of wall between the two doors wide enough to accommodate a decently-sized dresser, which was not possible if we moved the door. The new door would need to be wider to meet current code; the narrower door is grandfathered in as long as we don't touch it.)

The closet rod is actually exactly as shown in Palimpsest's plan right now, though--while it's not ideal given the narrow closet, it works just fine so we do currently have a full wall of hanging space. :) (The plan for the new nook is to put an Elfa unit there, though, so we would possibly put a rod there and cut down the current rod to make the space a little more open.)

It's not a small thing but if you are going to be redoing X and then maybe Y later, it may make sense to just bite the bullet. For disclosure though I have moved or slightly enlarged 5-6 doors in plaster or plaster and lathe walls, a couple of doors only a matter of inches, because those inches made a difference in the design.

I wrote this at the same time you were writing your post, but you would not necessarily need to have new millwork milled, particularly if the millwork is the same inside the closet, you could mine that. (Of course I have done *that* too, had knives cut, and I didn't think that was such a big deal either.) Of the grandfathering of the door width, I do get that. (But of course with our local L and I inspection they would not be paying enough attention to realize a door was moved a foot or so because they actually don't have the time and manpower to pay that much attention, that is a function of my location.

Sadly neither the office being converted nor the closet have any of the millwork--it's just in the two bedrooms, but seems not to match any commercially-available profiles. We did talk with a millwork company that would custom cut it for us early in this project, but the path that involved door movement was quickly headed to six figures (for reasons unrelated to millwork!), which was more than we had budgeted for this. If/when we do change the closet setup down the road, it would be part of a much bigger remodel to harvest some of the closet space for a mudroom/laundry room off of the kitchen, but that would easily have doubled the cost to do right now (and it's not clear we will ever end up doing it since we are also looking at some other solutions for laundry). We want to keep the possibility open, but definitely aren't ready to do that project right now.

I advise don't peck at this. Post the floor plan of the entire situation, all adjacent areas. I see no point to the "partial peck" Maybe you are in California where 1200 sq feet could easily set one back well over a million. I'm sure you have reasons.but this method usually costs more in the end, , and yields a lesser overall result.

At the very least, if a reach in closet works? take that closet space now. Or even delay the entire project. : ) Sorry.......

I get it.

I have always had sort of a "touch it once" mentality about projects where there is no incrementalism, it is an all-or-nothing proposition for each project which of course can get expensive and can slow the overall process down. And I would probably move before I redid something I had already done in the same house. I am not saying this is the only way to do things by any means.

Ha, we are indeed in CA! Cost to move is prohibitive, and our budget for this project is modest by CA standards, which meant limiting the scope considerably in an area with very high labor costs. Our primary goal is to get a second bathroom--we are content with the existing closet setup, so any work on that would just be for future resale, and therefore not a high priority. That said, the reach-in closet (if we do it) would be more like Phase 2 of this project, vs. redoing the same work, so we feel comfortable waiting on that (but not so comfortable with four people sharing a small bathroom!) Two of those four will be out of the house 10 years from now, so it made more sense to add the bathroom while we will get the full benefit of it.

What city? I’m in California too! Bay Area ??

Yes, SF East Bay.