My Bathroom & Laundry Room
The hallway leading to the laundry room is about 34” wide. On paper it may seem wide enough, but trying to squeeze through while carrying laundry baskets is a total pain. There is absolutely no storage in the laundry room. If it wasn’t so awkward to put the laundry in, it wouldn’t be so bad. We weren’t able to get the washer and dryer backed up to the east wall because there was not enough room to maneuver and the floor is in bad shape (we had parquet hardwood flooring but while we were overseas, our careless tenants destroyed it). We had linoleum put in after the installer tried to patch the floor with some kind of water powder, but the powder crumbled and the linoleum ripped when the new washer and dryer were put in.
The guest bathroom was the only one in the house that did not have carpet installed. The toilet alcove is so narrow that most of my family members cannot even fit into it to sit on the toilet. I can barely squeeze in but can barely move my arms.
There is an old light above the recessed medicine cabinet mirror. It has a single 2-prong outlet but it is not a GFCI outlet.
The shower is too small for the family member who would use it the most. The bathroom area is currently being used as a storage closet, and an opossum that comes in through the cat door used to hide in it before he/she decided to really make himself at home. (We’ve named it Earl and it likes to eat cookies and sleep in a cat bed on the kitchen floor).
There used to be a utility sink in the southwest corner of the laundry room but it was removed. The drain and water supply lines are still there. All of the sinks in the house have S-traps. I’m assuming that they were all done before S-traps were banned by plumbing codes.
I am currently trying to figure out a plan to remodel the area so that we can have easier access to the laundry and a bathroom that can actually be used. At first I considered finding a way to turn the whole area in to one large room with the toilet in its own compartment, but I couldn’t find a satisfactory layout. With the aid of some helpful Houzzers I realized that it might be best to tear down the west and north walls of the bathroom and swap the bathroom with the laundry room. My house is up on blocks and is just open underneath so I would not have to worry about concrete, ceilings, or having to notch floor joists. Since the floor already needs to be replaced down to the subfloor, we are free to re-arrange the fixtures and pipes. The main obstacle would be getting the plumbing vents done properly. There was only one vent for five fixtures (assuming they were all tied in to it) and the toilet was the closest fixture to it. The main vent stack is in the south wall of the bathroom (the north wall of the laundry room) about a foot away from the exterior wall. If we swap the rooms, we might even be able to fit a shower/tub combo in the southeast corner. I have spare siding from when the siding was re-done on the house so I could patch up the current hole for the dryer vent and move it over. I could probably tie in to a lot of the existing water lines, and both rooms are very close to the circuit box, so re-wiring would not be so difficult.
I could use the existing archway in to the laundry room for a door, but it would have to swing outward to fit building code rules about not swinging in to hit a person that is using the vanity. So long as I have the toilet a minimum of 15” from its center to the bathtub (I would probably try for at least 18"), I think I could put the toilet on the north wall of the laundry room sort of in the middle. I am considering the possibility of having it on the south wall next to the vanity and then mounting the toilet paper holder on the vanity, but that would require more adjustments in vents and such. So I could probably just build a space saver that fits over the toilet and has a toilet paper holder on the side.
I’m still not sure what to do with the washer and dryer. I could either put them on the south wall of the bathroom facing northward or I could put them on the east wall facing westward. East wall would make it so that I could probably hook the washing machine up to the existing pipes for the vanity.
Update June 9, 2014: I finally got a few images of the plumbing under the house. It's worse than I'd thought. PVC hooking in to ABS, fixtures that are not vented, pipes zigzagging all around and not making sense, no P-traps for shower and standpipe, PVC for cold waterlines instead of CPVC, potable waterlines too close to waste lines, etc.. It's a mess.
3 pack WoodPile shelves. Grabbed these crappily built shelves on clearance. Got some splinters. Pics don't show it but they have huge knots (that were concealed by the packaging) and they are secured only with staples. They will need some reinforcement, a ton of sanding, and some paint. The measurements given are not accurate. With some fixing up these will work OK for what I need.
Moen 26112 Engage Magnetix Six-Function 5.5-Inch Handheld Showerhead with Magnetic Docking System, Chrome
folding table for folding laundry idea
Closeup of laundry area. Laundry plumbing box on shelf behind washing machine. trash bin next to dryer. Shelves behind appliances to prevent stuff from falling. Small table folds down from wall for folding laundry.
Angled view of latest sketch for bathroom/laundry idea. Upper cabinets not shown bc I can't find ones I like in sketchup.
Bathroom layout from a different angle
bathroom layout
new layout idea with notes
New layout idea. Small piece of old wall remaining to hold light switches. Shelf about as deep as remaining part behind washer & dryer-- with a drop to match window sill. GFCI outlet with rocker switch for vanity light next to vanity. triplex rocker switch on wall next to door in bathroom to control vent fan/light/heater. Table that either folds down or folds up in to place for folding laundry.
Behind the wall panel
Window detail
Window from outside-- metal frame measures 24"x36"
Laundry room window from inside
This is a rough diagram of the plumbing layout (sans washing machine standpipe and tie-ins). lav and toilet vents will be in west interior wall. tub vent will be in north interior wall.
Same craptastic sketch but with lines drawn to represent the plumbing (excluding stuff from adjacent laundry room). Since I suck at perspective, the existing vent pipe that is closer to the viewer ended up looking all out of sorts. Maybe next time I need to draw a cube first and then put stuff inside of it. The existing main vent pipe is approximately 12 to 14 inches away from the finished wall to the east. The tub drain will probably be around 14 inches from that same wall so I will have to merge the tub vent with the main vent up higher.
Rough craptastic sketch of my plans for the guest bathroom (I suck at perspective and proportions). A few tings are labeled.
Sketch of side view of my house
old photo of side of house prior to fixing fence, changing siding, and replacing roof.
house and plumbing layout
another view of proposed layout in sketchup.
top view of proposed layout in sketchup.
Another angle of proposed layout in sketchup.
Proposed layout in sketchup.
existing layout in sketchup with shower wall down to view toilet.
existing layout in sketchup.
Plumbing layout if not using drywell for laundry.
Sketch of plumbing plans for toilet and lav.
Approximate measurements and current layout of the area for my laundry room and guest bathroom.
Euro style vanity we purchased for the bathroom. It is 26"W by 17"D. It is currently crammed into the shower.
Top view of the vanity. Its currently catching spiderwebs, dust, and holding misc objects while we are trying to get things fixed up in the house.
Front view of the Euro Style vanity with drawer and bullseye rosettes on the sides.
Small ceilign fan with gold stencils. The color seems to have bled a little so I suspect moisture in the air as the culprit. I think someone installed the fan kit upsidedown...
Old light above the medicine cabinet. It has a single 2-prong outlet (I'm guessing it is not GFCI.
A stock image of the Electroluxe washer and dryer we have. They are each 27"W by 31.5"D. With the doors open they are approximately 50.6"D. There is a shelf behind them as well as a stand pipe that make them have to be pushed away from the wall several inches.
Revised plan with bathtub. The wall between the bathroom and laundry room might need to be made a bit thicker to accommodate the pipes.
Revised plan with bathtub. Toilet moved to south wall. The problem with this is that both vanity and toilet would be on the exterior wall so they would not be able to use the main vent stack that is in the wall just north of the tub.
Another laundry layout option. This splits things up a bit so the toilet could still access the main vent stack. The Vanity could possibly be turned to the side so that the vent could go into the side wall instead of in to the exterior wall. It may still require a separate vent though.
The back door near the tiny bathroom. The metal box is the recessed medicine cabinet.
The back door. As you can see, the wall panels are missing.
The small bathroom with toilet in a 23" space. The new vanity is currently sitting in the shower until it can be installed. There is a small cabinet above the toilet. Perhaps that could be re-used above the toilet.
The hallway to the laundry room. There is a hole in the wall from Doofusaurus accidentally falling into it. The wall panels that used to be inside the pantry are leaning up agaisnt the wall.
The rough in plumbing from where the old utility sink used to be.
The water supply lines and stand pipe behind the washing machine.
Front of the washing machine and dryer, showing how narrow the space is. The white paneling is there because the wall panels were just missing when we returned from overseas-- no idea why tenants ripped them out. No insulation was in the walls.
Some view of the plumbing with washing machines hidden.
Q