Half Bath / Laundry Room -- Split them up or Lose a Bathroom?
First, thank you for taking time out of your day to read this. I really appreciate it!
I just bought a house in Connecticut. It's a 1960s split level (see attached floor plan for a general sense of the place). On the main floor, there is a combined half bath and laundry room. It doesn't do either of those jobs well. The washer and dryer the Sellers left behind are standard size and dominate the room. The door to the room is not centered on the wall, but is directly in front of the side of the washing machine. The dryer door is about half an inch from the toilet when open. It's cramped.
So far I've come up with two solutions:
1) Convert the space to a straight up laundry room and lose a half bath. Downsides that I can see include: guests having to go upstairs into the personal bedroom space to use the restroom, having to carry the laundry back and forth between the bedrooms and the laundry room, and dropping to a 3br / 2 bath for resale.
2) Convert the walk in closet in the master bedroom to a laundry space and make the half bath downstairs usable. Delete the door from the closet to the bedroom and add a door from the closet to the hallway. Downsides: Losing a walk in closet, laundry space is small and the door for it would be at the very top of the stairs, door to the attic would force the washer and dryer to go on the short wall where the door to the bedroom used to be.
I'd love opinions as to which way you would go, whether you see another option, and how you would lay out the space.
Comments (18)
PROBeverlyFLADeziner
last yearlast modified: last yearIMO these changes would serve your family and home better. If you have no need for a cedar closet that Master Bath could be significantly be improved.
nuix thanked BeverlyFLADezinerRelated Discussions
Help Me Plan a Tiny Half Bathroom (With Pics)
Comments (33)When they rough plumb, the toilet drain line is a 3" diameter (or 4" diameter) pipe. The center of it is 10, 12, or 14" from the finished edge of the back wall, usually (those are standard sizes). Where the toilet bolts down is also that measurement (10, 12 or 14" from the back wall) and informs you on what type of toilet to buy--a 10 in rough in toilet can sit back far enough to fit a 10 in rough in, but a 12" rough in toilet cannot fit into a 10 in rough in space. If your plumber has to set that toilet drain line at 14" from the back wall (because, say, there is a floor joist under where he'd otherwise put it), even if you chose a toilet that only sat 27" from the wall at a 10" rough in, you have to add 4 more inches to that projection (difference between 10 and 14) and now that toilet projects 31". So, what I am saying, is in case, it may not be JUST about how it will nicely draw out on the floor... but also where your joists under it lie, and where the plumber is capable of running the drainlines....See MoreLaundry room bathroom combo?
Comments (16)When I was younger I owned a townhouse with a stackable set in the master bathroom, the small kind of stackable ones. It was fine. Maybe I was young and happy to not go to the laundrymat. For my current remodel I had considered it but decided against it. But that's just me. As a potential buyer, I would not want to look at a W/D in the bath. Can you put them in some sort of cabinet? I've seen pics where people put them side by side and have foldable doors to cover the front of the W/D, so it looks like a cabinet. Looking out the window when you fold laundry sounds great. Will you have some sort of expandable rack to hang clothes as you put them on hangers? I'm not clear on where the bathroom parts will go if the W/D are under the window, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Maybe you can consult with a designer or someone skilled to help with the layout, maybe someone at a kitchen and bath design store or ? Maybe a 1 hour consultation would reap some good ideas. (?)...See MoreHelp with floorplan for Laundry Room - Office - Guest Half-bathroom
Comments (27)Do you have an elevation drawing of that stairwell in the living area? Seems the space under the stair landings could be better incorporated in your effort to locate the powder room, or at least the hot water, accessing from the closet by the entry and moving the sloset to the living room side. On another subject, am I mis-reading or are there bi-fold doors by the tub in the main bath? Looks like there are windows in the WIC. I would rather have windows in the bath and walk through the closet to get there than have to walk through the bath to retrieve clothing; not convenient if there is someone using the bath. That pantry at the foot of the stairs looks like a good spot for a stacking WD. I'd want it configured to vent out an exterior wall, using pullout pantries in the kitchen so that space could be the laundry. But first I'd move that big bath's footprint to the deck end of the space so the closet could be in the master....See MoreDoes this Laundry with Half Bath Layout Work?
Comments (33)I was liking the last design with the washer/dryer in a separate room through the half bath, but my wife has convinced me otherwise. We find utility in the sink in the laundry room and prefer the accessibility of it being next to the washer being important. This allows for a 28" sink cabinet. A change from a similar design to this is instead of a pocket door splitting the cubbies in half the entry to the laundry is now on the right allowing a continuous 86" of cubbies. This also allows us to keep the change from the previous iteration with the main entry door being shifted closer to the laundry so it's more in the middle of the room. I'm actually showing the sidelights at 14" now instead of 12". And we have a great test case for this foyer layout because the foyer in our primary home is exactly 7'-4" wide as well with a bench in the same position relative to the door. Makes us comfortable knowing that the spacing works. The pocket door into the laundry will likely be left open almost all the time. I'd say we shouldn't bother with it, but the cost to add later if we changed our mind dictates that it just makes sense to do it now,. The washer is top load, so no door swing to worry about and the dryer door will swing against the wall. With the pocket door mostly in line with the dryer, that mitigates any concern about the 66" depth to the room. The toilet is now in a water closet, alleviating the concerns that many had in the early comments. If there's still a concern with this overall design it's the comments of guests walking past the laundry to use the bathroom. Given our use of the house, we don't see that as a problem as any guest is likely to be an overnight guest who is as likely to use the laundry as the owners. Also as a weekend home there aren't going to be piles of laundry that will build up. I still don't love the pocket door for the toilet, but I was looking into self-closing mechanisms that are available. Alternatively, we're going to think about an outswing door....See More
nuix
last year@Fori, I agree! It is a groovy space! It even has a clothes line that runs above the sink and toilet for an extra 1960s feel. I love old house and all their charms and I'd love it if this room worked well! The sellers left me the original plans for the house, and I was surprised to see this half bath / laundry combo is original to the house.
Clearly someone who didn't do laundry thought this was a good idea for a layout. Who amongst us doesn't love to open the dryer door only to have the laundry tumble into the toilet? Good times!
The closet next to the bathroom downstairs is kinda weird and appears to have some sort of mechanical in it -- an HVAC duct through the top and something that is boxed in and runs vertically. This closest is roughly below the walk in closet in the bedroom and there is cabinetry on the other side of the wall, so I'm not sure what that vertical box in the closet could be!
PROBeth H. :
last yearlast modified: last yearsee if the HVAC could be rerouted and turn that closet into a stackable? that's one option.
any other utility closets (like a water heater that can be moved) that you can utilize?
what if you sealed off the current door from the garage and used that corner as the laudry or bath? make a door from the garge into the family room?
(hard to visualize just from the floor plan)Losing the downstairs bath is a biggie. Don't know how many guests you get or how long you plan on being in the house, but that would be a negative.
Losing a large closet in the master is also a negative.
19X15 is a large bedroom. are you redoing the bathroom in the master? if so, could you borrow some floor space and put in a laudry or a diff walk in closet?
kandrewspa
last year
A M
last yearHave you considered replacing with an all-in-one laundry unit? I have a 100 year old cottage with weird laundry space off of my kitchen. There was an eyesore stackable there but I switched to all-in-one 15 years ago and never looked back. Plus it is ventless, so you can put it anywhere you have access to electric and water connection. It does take a little getting used to.
nuix thanked A M
Fori
last yearnuix
last year@Design Interior South -- Thank you for the option! The kitchen is definitely a sub-optimal design -- why they didn't at least swap the position of the fridge and the stove is beyond me. Having the stove in the highest traffic area of the kitchen seems like an odd choice. I'm planning on living in it for a while (we aren't moving in until the end of the year) before figuring out how we want to redo it. I've taken a few cracks at combining the kitchen/dining room or redesigning the kitchen without knocking down any walls. The kitchen is a tough nut to crack because of all the doors, windows, and stairs that lead to the lower floor and I'm sure I'll be back here to ask for opinions on it when we get there!
nuix
last yeareandhl2
last yearnuix
last yearpalimpsest
last yearThe simplest solutions might be to just put it outside the downstairs powder room but on the other side of the wall in a new closet. Probably cheapest too, it's all right there and the family room could lose a couple feet no problem.
It could possibly go in the bathroom upstairs in the closet area,
Personally I don't care for laundry right off the bedrooms because there is usually either a load on the washer or in the dryer at bedtime in my house.
Fori
last yearchachawoman
last year
BeverlyFLADeziner