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Design Dilemma Bathrooms

Turn two bathrooms into one or keep it the way it is and redesign it?

last year

last modified: last year

In total the space is 11'2"×5'2.5''. Bigger bathroom is 8'2'' and the smaller one is 3' deep. The bigger bathroom has 2 entrances and we're closing off the one on the long wall that goes to our child's bedroom. The problem with having two bathrooms with one entrance is sometimes having to wait for someone else to be done, which doesn't happen often. Would it make more sense to just make it one larger bathroom? Which toilet should we keep?
Pictures in comments.

Featured Answer

cpartist

last year

Show us a 2D floor plan with how the bathrooms relate to the other spaces surrounding it as well. Doesn't need to be to scale

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Comments (17)

KAY JAY
Original Author
last year
palimpsest
last year
Could it be redesigned with separate entrances by putting the door elsewhere?

How many other bathrooms are in the house?
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I would love to see your unconventional master bath!! Our plan started with a first-floor master bedroom /bath plus an extraordinarily poorly placed powder room. You noted above that you don't like cleaning bathrooms -- I'm with you on that. Since it's just me and my husband most of the time, I don't see the point in two toilets on the first floor ... so we moved the powder room next to the master bath and removed the toilet from the master bath. So we're planning the powder room to be adjacent from BOTH the master bedroom AND the main house ... and then we have the bathing facilities separate. Unlike toilets-shoved-in-closets, the powder room is 5' the short direction, so it's large enough for comfort, and I only have one toilet to clean on the first floor. I've removed the other parts of the house, so it looks kind of confusing ... you'll have to trust me that it fits in nicely with the rest of the house ... at the foot of the tub, that's a little ledge and a TV for my husband ... that's a linen tower to the left of the vanity ... that's the shower head floating in mid-air /obviously it'll be attached to the wall: I definitely see your point about two standard bathrooms being more economical, just trying to figure out for myself if I was thinking of doing something different for the sake of being different or if it would actual make life easier for my family! Walking yourself through various options is a good way to determine that. We personally are sold on the above bath layout because my husband likes to stay in the tub for hours at a time (he often "reserves" the tub before a, so we decided it makes sense to place the toilet close-but-separate. Also, what computer program are you using? :) HGTV Home and Landscape Platinum Suite. It's nothing special. I drew up your latest suggestion in this program. Concerns: - If you're trying to have kids share, you need a sink in the toilet closet. Otherwise, you still have a problem with the kid in the toilet closet coming out and having no sink available to him ... if you're going to do a toilet-in-a-closet, I'd put a small pedestal sink in there too. - You have a bottleneck in the sink area. If the kids are using this area at the same time, you're going to have people trying to squeeze past people at the sink. - I forgot the exact square footage and have already cleared it out of my computer program, but it was in the 130s ... so it's still bigger than two simple bathrooms and has water walls spread around. However, if the access is off a common hallway, having two baths right beside each other seems silly to me I think the two baths side-by-side appear silly because they're floating in mid-air. If we had a whole floorplan and could see one bedroom to the left of the back-to-back baths /two bedrooms to the right of the back-to-back baths, it'd look different. It'd look like the bathrooms each "belonged" to those bedrooms, though they're accessed through the hall. Mrs. Pete has some great ideas. keeping your water from the same source, but with two separate you'll definitely have an easier time selling. best of luck! I agree that most people would be attracted to two plain bathrooms rather than a "creative" layout. With resale in mind, here's a question: How long do you anticipate staying in this house? If you're going to move before the kids are teens, I'd say go with one simple bathroom. One bathroom would be enough for them until they start in with make-up /hair and shaving. I think that a girls bath and a boys bath might be nice - perhaps the girls bath has one sink and more storage / makeup area and a tub and the boys get 2 sinks and a shower unit, etc That'd work fine if the OP ends up with a nice even split of 2 girls and 2 boys ... but since half these children aren't even conceived yet, that's a guess.
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Kendrah
last year
I think a lot of this depends of how many people are in your household and whether there are other bathrooms or powder rooms in the house. I don't think I would feel comfortable using the toilet with someone so closeby in the other bathroom. But if it has worked for you...
KAY JAY
Original Author
last year
There's another bathroom with separate tub and shower. No room to move the door. The kitchen is on one side of the wall and a bedroom on the other.
JP L
last year
last modified: last year
Taking a bathroom out of a house is a bigger decision with lots of things to consider - how many bathrooms total are in the house? How many bedrooms?

This looks like a powder room with an entrance into a main bathroom (but the main bathroom has a toilet of its own). Is that the case? And there's no other entrance into the main bathroom without going through the powder room? So yeah - need a larger floorplan to make a call on this one.
palimpsest
last year
Well two bathrooms accessed by one door, if I understand you correctly, isn't really two bathrooms, it's one compartmentalized bathroom, so in a sense, you are devaluing your house by one bathroom regardless, from a real estate perspective, I would think. It's like houses with shotgun bedrooms. The walk through bedroom of the pair often will not count as a bedroom because it has no privacy. It's a glorified hallway to the other bedroom.
sheloveslayouts
last year
Is your child in the master bedroom?

Unless you're in a rare situation where you have too many bathrooms, It would make the most sense to squeeze in two separate bathrooms. If every thing is just right, maybe you could create two separate bathrooms while keeping the same waste lines...
User
last year
Why couldn't you close the access between the two bathrooms?

Is there a way to reconfigure the sleeping arrangements? Reconfigure some other part of the house to change how the baths are accessed?

If that doesn't work, I would look into converting the space into two full baths.

Another idea is to replace the toilet in the powder room with a sink (double if it fits). That way, people can still wash their hands or teeth while someone is using the full bathroom, and these activities don't require privacy.
arcy_gw
last year
last modified: last year
Someone turned a closet into a bathroom? That's the oddest thing I have ever seen. No way is it functional to walk through one bathroom to get to the far one. Resale would dictate keeping two bathrooms at all costs. BUT--well not like this. The best solution is find a way for both rooms to have their own access and close off the doorway between them. Hopefully the access for at least one of the bathrooms is in a hall so guests can use it w/o schelping through a bedroom. That is assuming you only have these two bathrooms? If this is bathroom 2 and 3 them maybe lose one for a larger single bathroom.
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Patricia Colwell Consulting
last year
I need a floor plan and IMO to scale showing all the doorways where they lead any windows and the way these space relate to the whole house . I need context for sure.
KAY JAY
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year

The bedroom that connects to the bigger bathroom is the original master. I'm not sure where the powder room fits into the original floor plans. The previous owners added a diningroom, new master bedroom and new master bathroom. Making it 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. There are five of us. The hallway entrance is a pocket door. There is a kind of nook area on the kitchen side of the wall that can possibly be used. It's 13 inches from the wall to the edge of the doorway. We're not opposed to just having two bathrooms, but we didn't want to possibly mess up the value of our house.
sheloveslayouts
last year
You should consult a realtor, but I think eliminating the powder and just expanding the main bath as your hall bath with a larger vanity will add more value than any funky layout to preserve 3 toilets.
Karenseb
last year
I think you have the right idea after looking at your floorplan. Removing the door from the former master, leaving the tub and toilet in the same place and taking down the wall between the two bathrooms will allow you to have a nice 5 foot vanity.

A big improvement.
JP L
last year
If you're open to it, you may be able to reconfigure the spaces to allow for both (depending on the size of the original primary and the location of the third bedroom). Consult with an architect.
lharpie
last year
If you are completely redoing everything could you leave a half bath attached to old master and full bath to hallway? i could see current set up being useful for young kids but probably doesn’t add much for resale.
Karenseb
last year
I can't see keeping the bath off the hall. It is too small. 3 X 5 feet is not big enough for a powder room. Your other bathroom off the old master is probably a minimum size, but big enough. I think the 5 foot vanity is much nicer than a cramped powder room with a pocket door.

Maybe if the powder room was 7 X 3 feet it could work.

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