How close together do you plan on having your kids? If you're not a fan of jack and jill's, I would just do the one bathroom.

I would also vote for the one bathroom. My 3 kiddos (2 girls & 1 boy) share one bathroom right now in a layout very similar to this and it's fine. Do you have enough room to add a small linen closet somewhere?

good luck!

Thaks, I guess bigger rooms are better than private bathrooms?

We were originally planning for a basement, but we had to take that off our plans, so now we have the space under the stairs for storage. I figure I'll find a way to put up shelving on the side so that it can be used for linens.

Oh, and we do plan on having a second child within a couple years.

Another vote for one bathroom.

And yes, bigger rooms ARE better than private bathrooms.

I would go with a single bathroom and larger bedrooms myself.

11x12 is "okay" for the smallest bedroom in a house under 2000 sq ft total but even then, I'd probably expect ONE of the secondary bedrooms to be a bit bigger than that. In a home the size of yours, 11x12 bedrooms seem a bit too small.

Meanwhile, at least IMHO, two kids sharing one bathroom is perfectly FINE - so long as it is NOT a J&J bath. LOL! Besides, one bathroom means one less toilet and one less bathtub to be cleaned!

Your posted plans don't show dimensions but I'm wondering if you would have room enough to do something like this...

Bevangel! You are a genius.

That would likely fit. How wide would the toilet/tub area need to be?

Of course, two kids don't NEED their own bathroom, I actually grew up in a house where it was me, my mom and sister and we always managed with one. All these new custom homes with a bathroom for every bedroom makes it eas to get carried away!

And your right, 11x12 is small, I was just going through my original checklist and the bedroom size was one of the items and I guess at some point we just agreed to sacrifice it.

I'd say 5.5 minimum, 6 to 6.5 feet would be better... I personally, am a huge fan of separating the toilet area from the sink area in a shared hall bath of kids... And, that is what we are doing for my 2 girls.

Hmm... Well, with taking out on bathroom I am saving 5' and 6" for one all, if I put 2' in each bedroom and leave 2'6" in the bath I would get exactly that.

Am I looking at it wrong, or wouldn't there be more space if the tub and toilet are left in their original position and the pocket door is put between the sink and toilet?

I've always liked the single bath option...because it creates an easy access to a bath next to the mudroom. That will be a very nice feature, IMHO. The desk area looks good on the opposite wall, too :)

You can put the tub against the far wall with toilet near sinks... but, you will get a narrower door if you go with a pocket door since that will likely be a 5' wide room (the length of the tub).

Plus, the big con, is that you lose the window if you put the tub against the far wall. The pro is that the toilet is hidden with the wall if you turn it...

So, which is more important? window, or hiding toilet? (if you didn't have an outside wall right there with the potential for natural light, I'd say turn it to hide the toilet. But, you have natural light! Use it!

Ah, the previous plans always had a tub against the wall, and I also always planned on a window over it. Somehow that has never bothered me much :)

I think I prefer the toilet off behind the door where it can't be seen, but I could still make the overall space 6' and just leave more space around the tub. Maybe put in a 5'5" tub?

At first I was hestitant of doing this because I thought that I would be giving up the "use" of the hallway's desks, but I guess they really do work turned around on the other wall!

Thanks for all the quick help on this one!

You can also put in a rectangular awning window placed high above the tub. It will provide enough light and ventilation. I HATE bathrooms with no windows!!

My only comment is now your view is of the toilet from the hallway. That is a pet peeve of mine ;). I would rather look at the tub, personally with a pretty shower curtain or glass doors and tile.

Standard tubs are 30 inches wide and 60 inches long. Code requires that the center of a toilet be 15 inches from any other fixture and 15 inches from the wall so, for planning purposes, you can think of a toilet as being 30 inches wide.

Thus, by code you need a minimum of 60 inches (5 ft) of clear floor space to set the tub and toilet side by side and you need 60 inches to accommodate the length of the tub. A space 60 inches by 60 inches is therefore the minimum that will house a standard tub and toilet.

By my calculations, you'll have 6.5 feet of width and I assumed you would use 5 ft of depth. So you have PLENTY of room to set things up as shown in my diagram.

Leaving the tub and toilet where they were in your original drawing (with all the fixtures lined up along one wall) won't fit as well.

Regardless of which way you turn the tub and toilet, the wall dividing the two spaces and the pocket door will take up the same amount of room. And you'll still need a minimum of 5 ft of width. With everything lined up on one wall, you would have to set the tub and toilet as close together as possible or move the wall dividing the two sections forward making the front part of the bathroom smaller.

And, because the room is 6.5 ft wide and standard tubs are only 5 ft long, you'll have 1.5 ft of leftover space at the end of the tub that isn't terribly useful. Yes, you could use that excess space for linen storage but, by the time you build the necessary wall between tub and linen storage, you're left with a space that is about 14 inches wide and 30 inches deep. I don't consider that ideal because things will tend to get pushed to the back where they are out of reach.

Set up as I sketched it tho, you can have a nice WIDE space between tub and toilet. Or, if you prefer, you can set the toilet at the code-minimum distance from the tub and then build an 18 inch deep bookcase style storage all along the wall on the other side of the toilet.

Or, the best option would probably be to set the center of toilet about 18 inches from the tub and build 12 inch deep "bookcase style storage on the side wall so that the center of the toilet is 18 inches from the edge of the storage unit.

12" is plenty deep for towel and storage of things like shampoo, extra soap, bubble bath, and rubber duckies.

Athensmomof3 - I agree with you.

Is it wrong to put in a regular window with obscured glass.

I was trying to pull up an example on houzz, but I keep ending up with fancy master baths and not a standar 5' wide one! ha! This is close (only we would have obscured glass and vinyl or fiberglass windows).

[Contemporary Bathroom design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-bathroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_712~s_2103) by San Francisco Architect John Lum Architecture, Inc. AIA

To get more light in the part of the bath near the sink I could also put in a solartube.

You know, you CAN put a window over a toilet. And you don't have to worry so much about shower water causing rot problems.

Also, while I'm not a fan of looking thru a bathroom door at a toilet, in this case the only spot in the house where you're going to be able to see into that bathroom from a point directly outside the bathroom in the kids' hallway. It's not like anyone except family members (and maybe other children) should ever have any reason to EVER venture down that hallway and glance into the bathroom.

So in this case, I'd definitely choose greater functionality over any concerns about what someone might see the toilet from the hallway. It would be different if that hallway led to your kitchen or dining room or living room or even to the guest room and therefore guests were likely to be traversing the space with any regularity.

BTW, you might want to consider dropping a wall across the hallway between the stairs and the "bend" and putting in a door that would allow you to close off this section of the house entirely when your kids are grown or if you're having a party sometime and want to make sure the kids aren't bothered by the noise.

The door is an excellent idea... I've considered it a few times and it never made it into planning!

I know I can put a window over a toiler, but for some reason even though it will mostly be the kids down there I am just not found of the toilet being straight in line with the door. Maybe it is fueng shui of me? :) ha

I do want to include the pocket though, I wish i could find some more images to get my imagination going.

I think I'll leave the setup as it was, but with a pocket between the toilet and the sink. The window over the shower would be like the below examples. I know there is some chance of rot, and a pain to keep the window clean, but it is how I had planned the bathroom all along and I think it works for us.

[Traditional Bathroom design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-bathroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_712~s_2107) by New York Architect Linda Yowell Architects

[Contemporary Bathroom design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-bathroom-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_712~s_2103) by Tel Aviv Architect NURIT GEFFEN-BATIM STUDIO

Thanks for the help everyone!!!! Off to finalize it all now!

Our meeting with the designer went well yesterday, we sorted out a few last details and now he is preparing the new elevations to go with the updated plans! I'm very excitted to see them, and I'll share towards the end of next week when I receice them!

He did a great job of incorporating everyone's ideas into the bathroom changes, and even found space in the hallway for a linen closet which I knew was sorely missing on that side of the house. Actually, somehow my rather large house has ended up with much less storage space than I originall planned for!

A couple things:
- I'm considering leaving the bathroom without the pocket door for now. As I mentioned, I'm pregnant with my first, and it will be some time the division is needed. What if I just leave space for a wall there and add it later if needed?

- The bedrooms were only enlarged from 11x12 to 12x12. Turns out that we have a 5000 sq ft max (including garage space) before we have to go through an additional design review that would cost $$$ so the space simply isn't there.

If you add the pocket door later, won't you have to cut the floor tile to add it?

One option might be to have the vanity terminate into a pony wall. Later you could extend that up to the ceiling and add a regular framed door. You would also be able to hang the tissue holder for the WC on the pony wall.

caben - that could be a good solution.

Though, I was also considering going with marmoleum, so it would be a fairly easy fix later on.