My only downstairs powder room has a full bathtub in it and it is like what your husband proposes: Anyone entering sees directly ahead a " wall" of sedate cream-striped shower curtain that goes to the floor. The window is behind it. In my case, the sink is immediately to a visitor's right, followed by toilet. Ther is a towel rack and utility shelf opposite the toilet (and a hand towel ring next to the sink).

I like the configuration because it avoids the possibility visitors will be brushing up against the shower curtain, which I'm thinking they would find unpleasant. Visually, since the walls are painted beige, the wall of beige shower curtain makes it feel united -- just another wall, but it walls off the tub.

I never use the tub myself since I have other bathrooms. The window is actually a half window that tilts open at the bottom with a crank and tile reaches the bottom of the window.

I am glad to have the window for ventilation but the vanity lights and the overhead light supply plenty of light so I don't miss seeing the window behind the curtain.

Thanks @mytwo_cents
It will also have to be a shower - so currently window wouldn’t quite work I don’t think. Also, rather than shower curtain I think we’re going with glass. I like the idea of walking in and seeing the tub. Trying to figure out if it logistically makes sense with xtra work.

I love glass shower screens I do choose the one that is hinged for easy access if you have kids . As for chaging this at this time I would not bother with the somple fact that window nneds to be repaced and if renovating is in the book for down the road save the money right now. The galss door will make the space feel more open . If I was to do anything I would probably look for a small vanity for a bit of storage .

I never really thought about it but if my only downstairs powder room had a tub with a glass enclosure I would have put up a curtain to hide the tub, even though I don't use it. But I'm pretty sure that if I did use it -- and therefore had shampoo and loofahs and other personal things in it, I would definitely hide it rather than have to remove it all when I had guests using that bathroom. I also wouldn't want to have to clean glass and make the tub sparking before guests arrive -- and that would be the same no matter where the tub was located in the room.

Most California Bungalows are built on a slab. Moving the plumbing is really expensive.

I am not sure what I am seeing here - looks like there is a second door? Where does the door beside the sink lead? Could you change this to a wider vanity and not use the 2nd door or if it is a linen closet change the opening to outside the bath?

Can you alter the drawing below to reflect actual dimensions?

It doesn't have to be an expensive window in a shower, but it does have to have a vinyl interior. We had a window in the master bath shower in our previous house. The window was different than the others from the inside (as the others were wood), but if I understand your room, you don't have another window in there, so no one will notice the difference. It also might look a little different from the outside, but if it's not on the front of your house probably nothing to worry about. If you are on a slab, keep the current arrangement and get your dream bath when you add on.

I would leave things where they are currently located, replacing your tub with a shower. The wall of the shower that will face the window can have a floor to ceiling kitchen pantry cabinet installed with shelves inside in which you can store towels, etc. Keep your door swing against the shower/tub area, as it does now. If the door that Jennifer Hogan points out is really to a shallow storage area, move the door, as she suggests, to the hallway or the room behind it. I, too, suggest a larger vanity in that entire area. A console vanity on legs, like Kohler’s Kathryn. American Standard and other manufacturers make them, too. It will give the room a vintage feel. Half walls of tile? White and Black marble? Keeping your original window? Yes!

You can check with a realtor but it's likely many houses like yours are sold as starter houses for people with very young kids who will want access to a tub, not just a shower.

@Jennifer - you are right in that this is a linen closet. Never thought about moving the door to the other side. Cool thought!!! Though I don’t know how much it would add to the space of the bathroom and the doors behind it could slightly crowd.

If you move the shower then you are relocating the toilet? This seems like a lot of expense and hassle for not much up an upgrade

I think small changes can really help that bath - one minor change we did in our bath was remove a bulky medicine cabinet (similar to yours) and installed a flush mounted one - it weirdly made a huge difference in the small space -

@lala TOTALLY agree. Can’t wait to have that medicine cabinet gone and have one flush with the wall and built in.

Also we will be keeping the bath - to my two cents point, we actually do intend on expanding our family at some point so having a bath will be important. Wish we had the money to do the extension all at once. It’s hard but I’m resisting the urge to put a jacuzzi tub in here!! 😅😅

Also we have a quarter basement beneath our house so the bathroom is pretty accessible

If you end up moving the shower - one option is replacing the original window with glass block - we did that in our old house (we didn't move the shower, but the OG window was rotting in there) - no ventilation but lots of light

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LOL, we have the same bathroom and I'm debating moving our tub to where yours is! Our door does swing in the reverse, which helps (but no cabinet behind it--at some point after it was built, heat was installed and they put the register there).

Our house is a California bungalow a bit older than yours, and when it was first built it had a clawfoot tub with exposed plumbing, from what we can glean from the plans and the old plumbing stubs. At some point someone put an alcove tub in that is up against the window but on the same wall as yours. A common option for this layout is also to run the tub across the window wall, which I'm guessing is what you're considering. We don't want to do that both because our main plumbing waste stack is next to the toilet and will be a PITA and $$$ to move and because we tend to keep the shower curtain drawn and that would block all the light in the room. A shower with glass vs. curtain would of course help with that, though.

For ours, it isn't ideal to have the tub overlap the window--it's a pain for the curtain, which has to have a curved rod--but it has also not been a big issue as far as the window itself. We just replaced the window with a new one with tempered obscure glass (but still a wood sash)--if it were going to be fully in the tub, though, you probably wouldn't want wood.

I do agree that you should find out more about how costly these moves are before getting too far into your thinking. We're in northern CA in an area where it's uncommon for older homes to be on slab, so we have a basement and plumbing moves are relatively easy/inexpensive (but waste stack moves--not so much, since that drops down into concrete to run to the street).

I'm also curious about how you have liked having the tub in it current location overall. Where is your primary light switch? One concern I have is how close the tub is to the door as far as feeling private. It also looks like you must have a corner tub based on your curtain rod, which would be ideal for our space, but which no one seems to make anymore.

I’m in norcal, too! You want our tub? 😂 actually.. good condition.
So I actually don’t mind the layout, but my husband wants it to move. I love natural light and want it for my make up in the morning… but he doesn’t put on make up so probably don’t see the value of natural light as much as I do!
Our primary light switch is right next to the door to the bathroom on the same wall as the shower head but near the linen cabinet.

I also desperately want an arch above our bath like the 1930s.. and one comment on this thread is making me think a shower curtain would be nice so I wouldn’t have to clean all the time.. but I hate looking at shower curtains… so maybe it could be hidden behind that arch.

my bathroom looks almost exactly the same as la-la girl's Even when the light-toned curtain is closed it still lets light into the room, as well as bouncing off the ceiling. If you want the feelng of a bigger bathroom you can tie back the curtain closer to the wall and look at the tub directly instead of looking at it through glass. . In my experience a good shower curtain keeps more heat inside the shower while showering than glass will, especially if it is just a glass shield -- and that might get even more important if you move the shower to the window wall.

Ooh, yes, we definitely might--please keep me posted as your plans shape up! (I've been casually stalking eBay and Etsy without much luck since the awesome architectural salvage yard near us sadly closed, but most of the listings seem to be on the East Coast.) We also have recessed medicine cabinets in both the original and new bathrooms (both are from Rejuvenation--we did the one on the original bath years ago as a DIY project because I couldn't stand the 80s-era chrome-and-gold mirror in there and put the second one in last year when we converted a sleeping porch/office room to a second bath). They do help a lot to streamline the look, IMO.

If you hate looking at a shower curtain, think about a double rod with a liner and any kind of outer curtain you love. It can be drapery panels or custom sewn from fabulous fabric.

^ definitely - Etsy has tons of custom shower curtains

What problem are you trying to solve?

Have you gotten estimates for the cost of this gut renovation? If could take a chunk out of your savings for the larger expansion. I'd make smaller changes now that do not necessitate gutting, changing fixture locations or a new window. It will be more economical to do that at the same time you expand, plus you may have different goals and layout needs by then. Here's a more simple change

Add a floor to ceiling wing wall at the end of your tub. Build shelves between the wingwall and window wall and ditch the metal shelving. You will only need a straight shower rod and not a rap around one. Paint, get a new sink with more of a surround, recessed medicine cabinet, new towel rods ect.

We just renovated a tiny bathroom built in the 1930s that had a tub like yours with no end wall and a wrap around curtain. We added a wing wall and love it.

I just posted pics here of our new renovation with the wing wall.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6402032/crazy-absurd-bathroom-renovation

You are already looking at a 30-50K expense for this in your location. And 200-500K for a master suite addition. You might want to just address cosmetics, and save your money to move when the time comes that this is too cramped.

Frustratingly, you can easily pay that much to move too in our area of Northern CA; not sure where in the region OP is located, but guessing it may be similar. We costed both and ended up concluding we could do neither, so just added a second bathroom within the existing footprint and called it a day. Not ideal, but we discussed moving to areas farther out that were within our price range, and our kids felt strongly that they would prefer to continue sharing a room in our tiny house if it meant we could stay in our community. We will probably reassess when the older one gets to high school. The second bathroom definitely helps, though!

OP, do you have kid/s now and are planning on adding more, or do you not yet have children at all? If the latter, I wouldn't hesitate to renovate now--you'll have plenty of time to enjoy it. But if you already have a child or two and are planning more in the near future, you will probably feel the limitations of the space sooner rather than later, so might want to make different decisions around investments. We have two kids and I think any more than that would be pushing it in a 2/1; most families we know with three or more kids ultimately moved.

No kids yet. Just talked to the contractor today.

I think we’ve ultimately decided to keep the existing footprint, with an arch above the tub, add a wall at the end of the tub which will make open shelves on both sides (shower storage and toilet paper on other side. We will get an in wall toilet (floating toilet, not sure what you call it) - so much easier to clean underneath. We will get a vanity with drawers. Loved the idea of having that linen closet open from the hallway, will make the space feel cleaner and less busy.

Sounds like a wonderful plan and I love the idea of getting an archway in there! One of our bathrooms has a floating vanity with drawers. It makes the bathroom feel so much bigger and the storage is great. Wall hung toilets - I have never understood how to repair them if you need to. How do you get to the tank, where is the tank?

If only $200k - $500k could get you a significantly bigger home in N. California! I used to live in the Bay Area. Real estate is a different beast out there.

If no kids yet, I'd go for it. I smile looking at my old posts about our pre-kid kitchen remodel years ago where I debated whether it was worth it since we weren't sure we would be in our house for another five years...and here we still are, sixteen years later! So glad we did that project (and especially that we did it pre-kids). We were unlucky to experience an insane housing market that I hope you won't have to contend with--catastrophic bust during the Great Recession and then an unprecedented boom--but broadly, I think it's hard to predict what will happen in the future, and if you can look five years out and know you'll enjoy it at least that long, it's worth doing. You should have no issue at all with a 2/1 for five years--ours was great for babies/toddlers and didn't really start to feel tight until both kids were school-aged and had moved into daily showering. Even with that, the second bathroom alleviated a lot of the space issues. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to add a third bedroom, but for now it is working...and frighteningly the bigger kid is only six years away from college!

My cousin bought a 2/1 in Albany CA back in the 80s, before they had kids. They have been there for 40 years, are retired, now have gramdchildren. Over time as budgets allowed they expanded out and up, did i credible landscaping. Their original bathroom still has the same footprint but was renovated 30 years ago and remains their first floor guest bath and somehow still feels modern and fresh. The The home is worth 20 times what they paid. Now that is a forever home!