Going into a drain line with a toilet above is not a god idea. The back of my mind says you cannot do it under the code.

Thanks for that info! I should mention that isn't the only project we are doing to increase the home's value. We are redoing the bathroom, stripping many many layers of 1980's wallpaper so that we can retexture the walls and repaint, getting rid of popcorn ceilings throughout the upstairs, replacing all of the dated light fixtures, ripping out all the old carpet and refinishing the existing hardwood floors, installing new windows throughout, and installing new interior doors with brushed nickel hardware. DD's bedroom will get beadboard along with the new paint. We will install new baseboards everywhere (they are carpet now) and crown molding in the living room. We are also planning to finish the basement family room and put new doors and carpet in the hallway down there that leads to the unfinished part. The kitchen is going to have to sit this round out. A full remodel is more than we can afford right now so it will get freshened up with new paint and appliances. The cabinets are the 1985 but with solid oak doors and in decent shape. We will also do new light fixtures in there and a new faucet and possibly hardware for the cabinets. Eventually I will do new counters and a backsplash. In the spring we will tackle the landscaping and install a new fence in the backyard after we get our first time homebuyer tax credit. Does it sound like we are on track? Oh, and yes, the proposed master is right next to the hall bath. The ceiling below both rooms is exposed right now as well, so our plumber (dh's uncle) said it should be pretty easy to run the new plumbing.

Thanks! We are planning on a pocket door for the bathroom wherever we put it, so would need enough wall length for that but not space for it to swing open. (The hope is to reuse one of the existing doors.) I think I'd just sort of accepted that the only storage would be in the vanity, given the minimal space available. I've contemplated putting the laundry in the bathroom--there is room to do it by taking the space of the linen closet and part of the second bedroom's closet--but there wouldn't be anywhere to store baskets or fold clothes. It seems like a much better fit for the underused space in the kitchen (and in fact, it was in the kitchen when the house was originally built, and at some point was also against the window there since there were old hookups on that side). I hate having it in the garage, but it was prohibitively expensive to move it when we did the kitchen in 2010 (and our machines, which won't fit in the kitchen, were only a few years old). Now they are past the 10-year mark so (though they still work fine!) it seems more reasonable to think about replacing them, and we are feeling better about abandoning the idea of an eat-in kitchen (given that we haven't eaten in there for the past eight years!) Yes, 3/4 would just be a stall shower. I'd love a soaking tub but not really willing to give up bedroom space since it's a tiny room to begin with. The existing bathroom is okay-but-not-great. It was a Lowe's remodel circa 1997, and looks it. The tub isn't quite level so water pools in one corner, which is irritating although not a dealbreaker. The storage built-in is well-built but 60 years old, so could use a facelift. We gave the room a cosmetic facelift a few years ago (new paint and light fixtures, put a built-in medicine cabinet back where there had been one originally) but didn't attempt to fix any of the deeper issues. It is totally functional, but if money were not an issue I'd happily gut it and change a lot of things. That said, if we add a master bathroom, I will probably not care as much about many of those things if I'm not a daily user of the space. I'll see if I have some photos. The one lingering question for me with the space is whether there is a solution that might involve gutting the existing bathroom and reconfiguring it into two (with the addition of some space somewhere). The hallway/linen closet area is pretty underused and the deep end of the closet in the top bedroom isn't very accessible either, so I periodically contemplate reconfiguring all of that.

If you mean configuring the laundry and powder room into the utility room space, then a remodeling contractor should be able to help you with placement/code or maybe other ideas. I think, in an ideal world, we could all have all the space we need for all the elements in a house we want. But I'd rather have a powder/laundry combo, if I've determined that I need another 1/2 bath, rather than make do with one less bath than my family needs because some people object to having a W/D in proximity to a toilet, or whatever it is they object to. If you can squeeze enough space, I like the kinds of doors that pull out and tuck into the sides of the WD to hide it if you feel the need. I had both of these pics saved when I was trying to figure out how to move my w/d from a too small for today's large W/D units laundry room to my main floor bath. The first one is a bit hard to see but the doors slide/tuck in beside the machines.