What I like about the current design
A. The WIC has access to the space under the staircase landing.
B. Placement of tub and shower close at that side of the wall for good natural lighting with the two windows there.

My main concerns
1. WIC of 8.2ftx6.8ft is kind of small for a house of about 3300sqft. I am working on the staircase parameters to allow an extra feet of length there (after I replaced the red wall with the green wall as in my drawin).
2. To many doors. At least, the door close to the LIN can be removed.
3. The space is kind of tight. Especially the toilet closet of 3'8" by 3' 10". The wall sperating the double sinks and the LIN shall go. I am thinking if I can steal one feet from the shower or the study room.

Any input is greatly appreciated! JF

This post was edited by jeff2013 on Fri, Aug 2, 13 at 12:51

3. The space is kind of tight. Especially the toilet closet of 3'8" by 3' 10".

The architect design that toilet room? Interesting, because it won't meet code. You need at least 21" in front of the toilet and you don't have that with the door in the current location. I'm not sure if it is possible to move the door out far enough due to the location of the other door. If you want to keep this floor plan, your options are to remove the door by the linen area or forgo the door on the toilet room.

And I agree, IMO the closet is too small for the size of the house. But I will say that we chose to have a smaller master bedroom and larger closets. We don't have any of our clothes in the bedroom.

You could *possibly do the toilet room with an in-wall-tank, and a wall hung bowl which is 22" ( 46"-22"=24") but absolutely not with a conventional toilet, which would leave only 17-18".

But in any case the minimums are minimums and this house is big enough that you should not be working with minimums in the master bath. I also wonder if there actually enough of a wall there for the pocket of the drawn pocket door + adequate frame and support of the closet door.

I would try to rework this part of the layout, forgoing a swinging door between the main bath and vanity area, getting a sink near the toilet (you are potentially opening two doors after using the toilet before you can wash your hands) and consider if you want to do such a large tub if you have a relatively tight space. Usage studies have shown that after the novelty wears off people tend to not use big bathtubs in correlation to how much real estate they take up.

@Dekeoboe,
Yes. The architect designed the toilet room. I understand that the minimum size of a toilet closet is 36” by 60”. I would like to keep the toilet closed with a door so I think that door by the linen area shall go.

Another thing about the layout is that the master bedroom is about 12’ by 20’. I am not sure if that is too narrow.

@Palimpsest,
Good eye on catching the potential problem of the pocket door to the WIC.

I don’t like to mess things up in the master bath so I would like to stick to a conventional toilet.

We definitely need to rework the layout.
1. The door between vanity and bath shall not exist there.
2. It is not a fun to use it when the toilet is far away from the bedroom and we need to open three doors.
3. The tub looks too big to me and the shower has a good size too. Not sure how to cut some space out of them for better use.

This is the first time that I received the layout for this part from the architect and it is very different from my original plan so I need some hardwork in the area.

Thank you all for your following my build and sharing your thoughts. This helps a lot! JF

This post was edited by jeff2013 on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 11:59

A standard, reasonably sized bathtub fits in a space that is 60" long and 32"-36" wide. You currently have 78.5" allotted in length and with those 18 inches you could reconfigure the shower and toilet room and possibly have reasonable room for both in a proper size.

What about a standard tub along the linen closet wall, make the toilet room longer toward the shower, and then the shower gets turned to go along the bottom wall?

@Palimpsest,

Yes. We need to reduce the deep soaking tub to a standard tub as the space is tight there. I just did a quick drawing and please let me know if you have any comments.

@Williamsem,
I like the idea of a smaller tub and rotating the toilet room by 90 degree. I am drawing a new layout with a corner tub and a reduced shower. Do you have any further suggestions?

Here comes my revsed layout.

1. Modify the riser/tread parameters from 7.5/12 to 7.5/10 to allow more space in the WIC.

2. Steal one foot from the study room to make the bath bigger.

3. Redo the bath layout
a) A corner tub with 5ft one each side.
b) A shower of 42inches by 60 inches with 15 inch seating
c) A toilet room of 38inches by 60 inches with a outswing door
d) Double vanity sinks inside the main bath
e) Linen and reach-in closet (drawers, cabinets or other storage) in previous sink location.

My main concerns/questions
A. Are those tub/shower size OK?

B. The space for the two sinks is kind of short. Maybe shift the linen and closet room wall upward by a few inches. (The WIC would need at least 6ft wide for double hung. It is 6ft 10inches right now).

C. Door and window configuration still need to be worked out. I am not sure how to use the CL area.

Let me know if you have any comments about this layout or some other ideas.

Thanks,

JF

If you switched the toilet compartment and the shower you could put one sink at each end of the tub.

You design or Pal's tweak are much better than what the architect did. You seem to be having to work very hard to rework everything the architect does. I am sure this has all been very hard on you. Sure hope you are not paying too much for the architect's designs.

Carol

Your 2nd layout is a great improvement. It looks like you are not bringing the shower all the way to the wall. Do you have plans for the 1' 3" space between the shower and the wall? If you moved it all the way to the wall could you move the toilet too and gain another foot in the WIC?

It's a much smaller shower than in the first version. Although, I think the smaller size is fine.

You could still have a problem with the wall the pocket door is on. If you plan on hanging clothes on that wall in the closet, you will need to make sure you plan a method that will allow the wall to be used for that and accommodate the pocket door. You could have the pocket door go into the opposite wall, but it looks like that is also a closet wall.

What's going on with that stairway? I can't tell which direction it goes in or to which what room the top of the stairs brings you. But I would consider a complete rearrangement in that area. Is that tiny alcove in the study in the new design going to be built-in shelves? The "great room" looks more to me like what is usually called a sitting room, a room you walk through before the main part of the bedroom. I would steal some space from that room for the bedroom, then expand the linen-closet hallway into what is now the bedroom, which will leave more space for the bathroom.

Now on the bathroom. Not bad, though the window halfway between the sink and tub strikes me as, well, less than ideal visually. If you can't make a pocket door fit, there are some nice-looking tambour doors out there. I have little experience with corner tubs and don't have a good feel for how much room they have compared to rectangular ones, but I would never build a new bathroom with a tub in it and not get at least a 5-1/2"L x 36" tub unless you hardly ever use it. Is the double sink a necessity? If it is, could you get by with one of those wide bowls with two faucets (and sometimes two drains) with decent room on either side of it? Like, you know, ......

@Palimpsest,
I like the idea of one idea of one sink at each end of the tub. The symmetric arrangement is nice at least on the 2D floor plan. Not sure what the implications are on 3D with sink and tub at different heights.
I did not switch the shower and toilet mainly as I was trying to put toilet as close to the master bath as possible. One of the complaints of the layout is that it is a long walk from bed to toilet.

@Carol,
Thank you for your continued support! Yes. It is a lot of work and sometimes we had difficult decisions to make and that can be stressful. We have never been here. While I am learning everyday, I am simply not as knowledgeable as I would like to be for such a demanding project. The architect helps a me lot but as you see there are still many issues so I cannot just simply follow his design blindly. Inputs from you and many other GWers here had made things much easier for me. I really appreciate it.

@Lotteryticket,
Thank you for your comments! The 1’3” or 15 inches space inside the shower is the seat. I am not sure if a shower seat is a good idea when the shower is small. I am going to evaluate the current closet situation and see if we need more there.

@Dekeoboe,
I agree. I have changed the pocket door to a 32” hinged in-swing door. Do you think that would work?

@Lee,
Thank you for your inputs! I have other posts regarding
whole house floor plans /exteriors design thread
and also kitchen layout revision thread
. I would like to receive your feedbacks there. I did think of getting some space from great room to master bedroom and then shift some of that space into the closet area.

Sorry for the window placement. While I modified the architect’s layout, I forgot to move the windows accordingly t before I post it. I need to work out all the door arrangement in the master bath and would look into tambour doors.
I am also concerned about the space inside a corner 6060 tub. I found one with bottom of the tub interior dimensions to be 48” x 39”. Not sure if that is ok.

I think it would be nice to have separate sinks. However, if the space too tight, I would rather do one with some knee space. Thank you for the picture of the double sink vanity.

Here is my new layout (ver02)

1. Rectangular bedroom. I moved the right wall 1.5ft to the right and let the entrance door align with it. Now the bedroom is 13.5ft x 19 ft. Maybe I can have a sitting area on the top with some ceiling/flooring arrangement.

2. Two closets. A standard in swing door to the closet area. On one side is a 2ft reach in closet. The other side is a walk-in closet. There is a sliding door to the WIC. The WIC has 2ft hang ups on both sides and the walk way is about 2-10. The ceiling height is 8ft under the staircase landing (to the right of the dashed line) and 9ft elsewhere.

3. Bath with everything else. A 60” by 60” corner tub and a 42” by 60” shower to the end wall. A 38”x60” toilet room close to the entrance hallway. Two separate sinks at end of the tub. Linen shelve/drawer/cabinet stay inside.

My questions are
A. Are the tub/shower sizes OK? I understand that the space is tight for big ones but still like to make sure they are acceptable.

B. Is the current closet space good enough? I counted the total linear dimensions from the three sides of hang ups to be about 26ft. This has been increased a lot from the architect’s previous design of 16.5ft.

C. How about the sink/lin arrangement? An alternative is to place two sinks together and have linen between the tub and the shower. I need to consider in 3D which way look better.

D. Which door for reach in closet and also the shower? I am thinking of a slider or bifold for the closet and I know there are other options. I like to have sliding glass door to the shower but that does not allow a seat inside the shower . The out swing shower door interfere with the sink there so it look awkward to me.

Thank you all for your suggestions! JF

This post was edited by jeff2013 on Fri, Aug 2, 13 at 12:37

Double sinks placed together to relocate linen between tub and shower. This is to get rid of the interference on the person using the bottom sink from the outswing shower door on previous layout.

Thanks! JF

I think in the last layout you are going to be elbowing each other at the sinks.

I personally don't think two sinks are a bad idea if you have the room, but two close together, I don't think is ideal. I think this is more so each person can keep their own things stored around it more than it is that two people must be able to use the sink exactly at the same time on a regular basis, which in my experience has been rather unlikely.

We have a set up that is similar to the one in your Aug 2 posting. Yes, there can be some interference if a person is standing at the sink, but it really isn't that bad. It is rare that my husband is at his sink when I want to use the shower. His vanity is also bigger than the one you are showing, so I can always open the shower door into the shower if I need to when getting out of the shower. (I can't do that for getting into the shower as the controls are on that wall and I like to turn on the water before I get into the shower.)

@Palimpsest,
Thank you for pointing that out for me. Our current house has only a 3ft single sink vanity in the master bath and I am trying to see if we would be able to do double sinks here.

@Dekeoboe,
Good to know that you have a similar set up and it works for you. Thank you for sharing your experience with me. So it is something that I should still consider. It might not to be that bad if the center of the sink is placed closer to the tub than the shower. We still have over 1ft clearance there. Not sure if the 2’10” vanity is big enough.

A new layout (ver03)
1. Move the wall between closets and bath up by 1ft to allow a 6’4” vanity for double sinks. Current setup has 42” between two sinks, 20” and 14” from the centerlines to wall and tub respectively.
2. Part of the wall on the toilet side is moved up 1ft for alignment and better look. This would result in a 2ft wide 1ft deep shelves/drawers for shoes and other small items in the WIC.
3. Toilet and shower stay the same. This is to maintain the space need for the hang ups in WIC.

Questions/Concerns
A. Double sink together as shown here or two separate with each at one end of the tub?
B. Tub / Shower sizes OK?
C. Shall the toilet/shower section be moved up by 1ft too?
D. Will the modifications regarding the walls in green have any structure / architectural consequences that to make the modifications impossible?
There are some loadbearing walls for 2nd floor rooms. I will follow up with the architect regarding the last issue.

Again, thank you for your inputs! JF

I think you are on the right track! The only suggestion I have is to leave the closet alone and just push the sink side up so the doorway moves to the middle of that little wall section. I think you will feel much more comfortable with the larger vanity.

@Williamsem,

Thank you for your suggestion. I like the idea of a larger vanity for counter space and cabinet/drawer storage. I just have one concern of moving that side up. I will lose that vertical definition of bedroom, closets, and bath. Maybe I can move both sides another foot up, which gives me a 7.4 vanity for two sinks. Or I can try small sinks for the 6.4 vanity to allow max counter space.

This post was edited by jeff2013 on Mon, Aug 5, 13 at 3:01