To make that a pocket door will require reframing he wall and even then will be a tight fit as a 2' pocket door will required opening 2 x 24" door width plus 1" and the framing, drywall etc.. Honestly I think the swing door is best as if left open means the office door opening is blocked which should be a flag to close the door. A pocket door will be left open 99% of the time, just because.

@millworkman - it is hard to see, but the wall continues into my husband's office, so I am not sure space is an issue, but that is good feedback on it actually potentially getting left open even more often.

I have thought about swapping the door swing so that if it is left open, I am staring at the door, not the toilet, but wasn't sure if that was silly.

No one leaves it wide open, they just leave it cracked maybe 6", but it's enough for the constant reminder of what is in there.

I had also thought, though perhaps this is disruptive and silly, to put some kind of partial divider between the kitchen and bathroom - basically extend the wall out 6" or so on the left to enclose it more, but my husband (rightfully) feels it will make it harder to navigate an already small corridor.

Pocket doors are great in the right application. This is not it. It WILL be left open more often than not. And the hardware to open and close may be challenging for young and old hands. Change the swing (good idea) and move on. Good luck with your reno.

Understood - nix the pocket door idea. Flip the door swing.

Anything else? I am aiming to install a NOISY and powerful fan for the bathroom to hide sound. Thankfully the doors we have now are solid wood, so they do a decent job of cutting down on sound already.

Thinking of putting up a beautiful wallpaper in the bathroom - anything to make people say "oh, nice!" And forget that they are actually looking at a bathroom... Off the kitchen.

" it doesn’t provide much sound protection. "

Or odor, especially since it is off the kitchen.........

You can put an automatic door closer on it.

https://www.hingeoutlet.com/products/door-damper-self-closing-surface-mount-for-doors-up-to-3-ft-wide-88-lb-multiple-finishes-available-sold-individually?variant=39951391883416&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-NT996m2iQMViHdHAR1Yzy_6EAQYAiABEgLtPfD_BwE

Can we actually see your space? Posting it will get more ideas.

I have a similar situation. Mudroom converted to powder room and it’s the only bathroom on the first floor, with no possible place on that floor for another. Ahh, old houses.

I think you’re on the right track. Flip the swing of the door, self-closer if needed, automatic exhaust fan.

People seem to be obsessed with the certainty because there is a powder room there that family members and guest are going calmly get up from the dinner table, go into that powder room. have a huge bowel movement or explosive diarrhea ten feet away from people eating and then calmly sit down and continue their meal as if nothing happened. And there are a lot of old houses around here with powder rooms added off the kitchen, dining room, or living room.

Maybe some of these people are have friends or family that are this crude, clueless, or psychologically flawed, but in my experience this has happened only ... never.

My parents used to entertain almost annually for around 100 people, and regularly had dinner parties and I was often tasked with periodically checking on the bathrooms, and I can't remember a single guest ever doing this, except Maybe if they snuck off to the most remote bathroom in the house. Certainly not in the powder room in the front hall adjacent to the kitchen or the powder room in the entertainment area with the bar. Throw up from too much drinking and have to be driven home? A few times. And again, certainly not in the more public powder rooms.

We regularly have people over for dinner and it's not that common that any guest uses the bathroom at all if they are over age ten. And I don't think any guest has ever pooped in my house unless they were an overnight guest. And certainly when I was not sitting right outside the door. For full disclosure my current house does not have a powder room on the first floor. In some ways it would be convenient if we did. We don't wear shoes upstairs at all. But if we did anybody in their right mind, unless they were physically disabled and couldn't get up the steps, they would not be using it like that.

How did I not know automatic door closers are a thing???? Yes, I will do that.

Also, I meant "gutting the kitchen" but my phone keeps thinking I don't want to use that word and changes it on me.

As requested, here is a photo of the powder room. This is it in its current state, so you can see my husband's shaver out for cleaning, for example, which is usually put away. But it is a tiny space.

When I am home, I'll try to take a photo of the above off the kitchen where the door to the powder room can be found.

TBH, if you have a five-year plan to move the bathroom somewhere else, I wouldn't spend much money on it now. Aesthetically it looks fine, so if the issue is just the noise/smell, an exhaust fan might be a worthwhile short-term investment.

FWIW I prefer the window you have now to a double-hung. We just replaced a casement in a bathroom with a double-hung and I miss being able to easily crack the casement open. (We had to replace the window to meet code for the project and the window builder sold me on the double-hung because we could put obscure glass in the bottom and clear in the top, and that certainly is a pro. But for yours, seems like that's not a factor.) I would make decisions around window and flooring based on what you plan to do with the space in the five-year plan, though. Does it get subsumed into the kitchen? Does it become part of the new laundry? Will you potentially need to move walls or reconfigure in a way that would mean moving the window anyway? If any of those, I probably wouldn't do anything with the floor or window now.

Showing the existing plan -- at least the rooms adjacent to the kitchen and bath will probably help with ideas.

Also showing your long term plan would be good.

Have you asked for a review of the planned kitchen, and of the 5 year plan?

You could also add a little bit of wall on the lower left corner of the bathroom to extend out a bit to conceal the door slightly. You will lose a bit of direct path into the office but it doesn't have to be much.

I added a wall of about 14" next to the opening side of the front door because it opened directly into a front room/dining area and just that little bit of screening makes a big difference.

"family members and guest are going calmly get up from the dinner table, go into that powder room. have a huge bowel movement or explosive diarrhea ten feet away from people eating and then calmly sit down and continue their meal as if nothing happened."

But what about when they run back into the dining room, holding up their pants, toilet paper trailing from their shoes, yelling "flood! flood! where's the plunger?"

I mean, any hostess with honor would have to immediately commit hari-kiri with the cheese knife, or ritually drown herself in the soup tureen.

Seriously, powder room off kitchen, if door swing blocks the poop throne from overt view, has been a non-issue for me. It's not the epitome of class, I guess, but neither am I, I know for sure.

Automatic door hinge. Consider lengthening the wall to the left of the PR 9-12" or so, and you could do that with the wall to the left of the staircase to create a hint of a vestibule and separation (bonus a bit more wall space in kitchen.) Loud fan. Can of Febreze on sink counter.

If you're gutting the kitchen, and if you choose to use that upper right corner of the kitchen space and end up with a void corner, you could consider using that space for a drawer in the powder room, for TP, cleaning supplies, etc. Might as well use the space if you can.

Building on what chicagoans just posted, you could put a (pocket) doorway where the black lines are to form a little vestibule for the trio of doorways.

I’m reading this thread because the topic always sparks some funny comments. @palimpsest & @John Liu - both of you made me laugh out loud! Thanks.

@adkhiker - you are getting some great feedback for realistic solutions.

I need to respond to these individually tonight because they are are hilarious (and there's some really good ideas in here, too) but I promised photos of the spaces and I can do that before I start dinner.

@artemis78 - I agree to some extent about not wanting to spend too much money on the bathroom if we have a five year plan to replace it. However, I also know that I had a five year plan to redo our kitchen - and that was 15 years ago when we bought the house, haha. While I would LOVE to move the bathroom, and I know how we would do it, it's hard to know what will happen in five years. So, I need to try to do enough now to make the bathroom more tolerable for the foreseeable future, anticipating that other things may come up between now and then. Thankfully, the plan would be to just convert this space BACK into a pantry. So, ideally, it would be as simple as pulling out the sink and toilet, capping the pipes, and putting up some shelves. Voila!

@eld6161 - I have posted some photos which will hopefully help with the layout question. When looking at the wall with the egg photo on it (haha) the powder room is the door on the left.

So the first photo shows the side of the powder room door then your H's office?

If so, that powder room is practically in a different space from the kitchen - like in a mini-hallway that leads to basement, office, etc. I'd use some visual tricks to further delineate that space - different color paint, different lighting, a decorative hanging - then switch the door swing, install the vent fan, and don't give it another thought.

@chicagoans & @palimpsest - I love the idea of extending that wall out a bit to create more of a vestibule. My husband feels like it cuts off the "flow" of the house. However, his office is the next room behind that vestibule and I wouldn't consider that "public" space, so to me, I don't think it's an issue closing it off just a bit. Do you think maybe 6" would be enough? Any additional storage we could eek out for cabinets would be great. My plan with that coffee station wall is to *try* to fit a small pantry on the left hand side and then have the right side with some open countertop and both an upper and lower cabinet.

@palimpsest and @John Liu - I agree on the fears around these bathrooms being a bit overblown. I have had an "incident" only once with company, when my FIL with mobility and bowel issues made a bit of a mess in the toilet while we had him over - but it was contained and I just cleaned it extra well. IN GENERAL, I most people go upstairs to the full bath if they need to... drop a deuce. My husband is actually the worst offender in breaching that unspoken contract but I have been harping on this fact as of late and he has gotten better. I clean pretty religiously, so really it's mostly about making a space that is comfortable for guests if needed, but that is ideally hidden enough from view that I can just forget about it when I am cooking dinner. I am aware that plenty of houses have this arrangement - I grew up in a house with the ONLY bathroom being off the kitchen, and I lived to tell the tale.

@PPF. - I don't have a fully baked kitchen plan yet. We have identified our contractor who gave us a rough estimate of the project (and of the garage conversion project), and we are working on financing now. Plan is to keep the layout relatively the same (honestly, it works well), but to upgrade storage by ripping out the soffit and bringing the cabs up to the ceiling, and also to upgrade the electrical and run electricity to the island. Oh, and actually get REAL EXHAUST over the range since, right now, there is nothing (old house.) Bigger sink (undermount), move the microwave to a shelf in the cabinets to the left of the stove... that's about the extent of the changes I am envisioning. OH, and, if possible, I want to blow out the wall where the door and window are and turn that into a slider onto the deck so we no longer have a door swinging open into the fridge. I have another thread going where I have shared my general vision for finishes and I am seeking feedback there on colors and cabs and countertops, etc. Biggest questions I have are mostly about storage layout - I know I want more drawers. I know I want some vertical storage for baking sheets. I want a place near the window over the sink to keep plants. I want the garbage in a cabinet instead of taking up storage space on the other side of the room. I just don't know how and where to put these different features. That said - super happy to receive any and all feedback.

I completely understand the general reservations about having a bathroom front and center with a prominent toilet. I passed on houses because of powder rooms in the front entry where you could see the toilet when you walked in the front door, or because a framed view of the toilet in a hall bathroom walking up the steps. I completely reconfigured a bedroom because the original entry to the bathroom was next to the head of the bed. I get all that.

It's just when people bring up smells all the time, in my experience people will generally not do that in a very publicly placed powder room given other reasonable choices. At least people I know, and not is someone's house. But I worked in an office with the restrooms in the elevator core and the appalling condition people left those toilet cubicles in makes me wonder about people. I worked on a floor of lawyers, international finance firms, and healthcare professionals, and the way those restrooms were treated made me feel really sorry for the cleaning people. So I don't know.

You may want to mock up the depth of the little wall with cardboard. Six doesn't seem like quite enough, but 12" will probably be too much. Sure it will affect the flow. But any room with a doorway already does that anyway. Usually it's a 30" door in most residential settings.

Apparently some studies have shown that your husband being comfortable with doing what he does is a good sign for the health of your marriage, believe it or not.

@palimpsest - Thank you for all this! The cardboard mockup is a great idea. And, thank you, I will try to take my husband's comfort as a compliment, haha. We have been together since high school (over 20 years now) so, yes, we are very comfortable :)

This is the general thing we are planning to do on the current coffee wall (which is against the bathroom wall): https://www.houzz.com/photos/watertown-ma-kitchen-remodel-and-addition-transitional-kitchen-boston-phvw-vp~165714219 (not green cabinets).

For now, could you switch how the door to the powder room swings? If you have it hinged on the left as you look at it, at least if it's left open you'd be looking at the door and not into the powder room from the kitchen.