Planning Your Bathroom

Our bathrooms have grown from being simple, small, and functional to becoming ever more luxurious. Planning a bathroom has its own complexities to be aware of in order to get it right. From a simple powder room to larger common bathroom, we will discuss what you should know to plan your bathrooms.

This article will focus on common bathrooms and will exclude master bathrooms, which often have their own unique requirements as part of the larger master suite.

The basics – what you need to know

We have all used bathrooms, and you’d think they would be easy to plan. Many are. However, many people do not understand the basics of sizes, clearances, and relationships needed for a comfortable bathroom.

Below we will take a look at these requirements and will provide examples of various types of layouts as guides for your bathroom planning efforts.

The fixtures and the space they need

Bathrooms use three basic plumbing fixtures in various combinations. These are the toilet, a sink, and a bathing fixture. Lets take a look at each.

• The toilet: a toilet needs to have enough space to comfortably do our business. Toilets should have a minimum of 3 feet of width and a minimum of five feet from the wall behind the toilet to the wall or fixture opposite. Don’t place toilets next to or in front of a door whenever possible. In bathrooms with three or more fixtures place the toilet beyond the other fixtures to minimize the view of the toilet.
• The sink: a sink should have an absolute minimum of 2 feet of fixture width for a pedestal sink. Sinks placed in vanities or other specialty sinks should have a minimum of 3 feet or more in overall width and a minimum of 20 inches in depth. The space in front of the sink or vanity should be at least 3 feet from the front of the vanity to the opposite wall or fixture, with 4 feet being preferable.
• Bathing fixtures – general: These fixtures consist of the bathtub, a combination bathtub/shower, or a shower unit. These can come in various sizes and shapes. The important space consideration beyond the size of the fixture is the amount of space needed to dry off after bathing. You should provide a space that is at minimum 3 feet by 3 feet, with 4 or more feet being preferable.
• Bathtubs: For planning purposes the smallest tub you should use is 5 feet in length and 2 feet 6 inches in width. If you intend on larger ones be sure to research how much space you’ll need for the type of tub you want.
• Showers: Showers come in a variety of sizes and proportions. For planning purposes use at minimum at 3 foot square shower unit, but preferably something larger as this size can feel a bit tight to wash in.

These dimensions are preferred minimums to make a bathroom functional and minimally comfortable. Some bathrooms have smaller dimensions but are less comfortable.

Multiple bathrooms

It is rare today for a new home to use a single bathroom. As the average home has become ever larger so has the number of bathrooms. Today a three-bedroom house typically has a common bathroom and an en-suite bathroom for the owner’s bedroom.

Larger houses often incorporate an additional powder room for visitors, sometimes an en-suite bathroom for a guest room, and even en-suite bathrooms for each bedroom. Other spaces such as basement recreation rooms will often have at least a powder room. Here are some guidelines:

• Never force a visitor to go through a bedroom to get to a bathroom. There’s nothing worse than having to walk through someone’s bedroom to get to a bathroom when visiting someone’s house. If you’re designing en-suite bathrooms for each bedroom you must provide a powder room for short-term visitors. Otherwise provide a common bathroom.
• Most of us will have overnight guests on occasion. If you don’t have an en-suite guest room you must provide a common bathroom that the guests can access during the day and night and use to bathe.
• Each level of your house should have at least one bathroom so that you don’t have to climb up and down stairs to use the facilities. If your bedrooms are all on an upper floor you’ll have bathrooms as needed. A main floor with only living spaces should have at least a powder room if not a full bath for overnight guests. A basement level with active rooms should also have at least a powder room.

Bathroom Layouts

Below we’ll discuss the various types of bathrooms The layouts are generic in that they only focus on the placement of fixtures. Mirrors, towel rods, and lighting are excluded. Door openings are shown but the doors themselves are not shown to allow for a better view of the layouts. Some walls are removed to allow a view into the rooms.

All standard bathtubs shown are 5 feet in length unless noted otherwise. Unless a separate shower unit is shown all bathtubs are assumed to also include a shower.

The diagrams below show SUGGESTED MINIMUM DIMENSIONS for various layout options. Use this information as a reference for your bathroom planning. Be sure to adjust your plans to account for the fixture sizes you want, and plan the door swings so that they don’t interfere with fixtures, storage, or other doors.

Powder room

A powder room must have a toilet AND a sink, and should be accessible to anyone in the house. It should be placed off a hallway and should NEVER open directly into a living space.

Three fixture layout

This is the simplest of the common bathrooms, housing a toilet, bathtub, and sink.

Four fixture layout

The four-fixture layout using two sinks started as a design for the master bath but has since become standard for many common baths.

Five fixture layout

Five fixture layouts have two sinks and add a separate shower unit, keeping the bathtub. This is more common for master bathrooms but is sometimes used for common bathrooms. Often the bathtub becomes a specialized tub of larger and more unique shapes. These are sometimes built into a raised platform or are stand-alone tubs that act almost as sculptural art pieces.

Multi-space bathroom

Multi-space bathrooms consist of two or more rooms, typically with a separate room for the toilet and sometimes also for bathing. This setup allows for multiple people to use the bathroom simultaneously without sacrificing privacy.

Jack-and-Jill bathroom

This bathroom is located between two bedrooms and is accessed directly from the bedrooms. Typically not available as a common bathroom, some can be laid out to have a third access off of a common hallway.

Wheelchair access

If someone in your house uses a wheelchair, or if you plan to build a home to stay in through retirement, you should consider designing to allow for easy wheelchair access. Below are some considerations:

• Clearances: Wider doors and larger clear floor spaces than typically provided are needed for wheelchairs to maneuver in bathrooms.
• Toilets: Sturdy handrails must be provided on the back wall and one side of the toilet. They also must have adequate clear floor area for easy transfer from the chair to the fixture.
• Bathtubs: Tubs require special clear area for access, and showers need to be recessed to be flush with the floor and sized for a bench to be placed in the unit.
• Sinks: These must be placed below maximum allowed heights and have clear floor space below or adjacent to allow someone in a wheelchair to use the sink.

There are numerous national standards, and many states and provinces can have additional criteria. Check with your local authority to see which standards apply.

Unique features

Some interesting options are available for today’s bathroom designs.

• Bath/shower room: To obtain a separate shower and bath in a narrow bathroom, one opportunity is to combine them as a single space. With this option the bathtub is placed at the back wall with the shower space immediately in front of the tub, both often enclosed as one room. This requires you to walk through the shower to use the tub.
• Shallow sink: These sinks are designed with very shallow depths to provide more space in narrow bathrooms. They are often designed to be aesthetically unique features.
• Exterior shower: Bathrooms can be planned to access a private enclosed garden space that includes an outdoor shower, allowing for a unique experience to bathe outdoors.
• Sauna: A sauna can be planned as part of a luxury bathroom allowing for easy access to shower off after sweating the day away.

Bath towel access

Accessing towels after bathing is not to be overlooked. Towels should be within easy reach of a bathtub or a shower unit.

Provide towel bars, or at minimum hooks or rings, adjacent to the bathing fixture. If a bathroom is to be used by more than one person on a day-to-day basis you should include two or more places to hang towels, especially if they will be reused.

Some households use a towel once and then wash it. However, with today’s concern with water conservation many will reuse a towel multiple times

Storage options

Storage is always an important issue for bathrooms. Below are the more typical options:

• Medicine cabinets: This is the tried-and-true option for many bathrooms. These shallow cabinets provide easy storage for small items.
• Vanities: Another familiar options, these cabinets in which sinks are placed come in a wide variety of sizes, styles, and storage options. Under-sink storage is often used for larger items and supplies, with drawers as an option for smaller items.
• Linen cabinets: When space can be made available, these cabinets can be built in as permanent storage spanning from the floor up to ceiling if desired. These are used to store towels, sometimes the household linens, and often act as a catch-all option for everything from personal care items to medicine.

Since vanities are typically bulky, a style of vanity has been developed that is more open to allow the bathroom space to feel larger. This vanity is more like a table where the counter is supported by legs. Storage is provided by a row of shallow drawers just beneath the counter but open below that. A shelf is often placed just above the floor to store towels. These come in a wide range of styles and configurations.

Such a vanity brings about other storage needs to resolve. Since you don’t have under-cabinet space you’ll need to provide a place to store extra toilet tissue, larger items, scrubbing brushes, plungers and the like. A separate linen cabinet can take on this role. However, a small bathroom presents a challenge.

Recessed cabinet and shelving

The perimeter walls of a bathroom don’t have to create a perfect rectangle. Depending on what spaces are adjacent to the bathroom you can push a part of a wall back one to two feet to create a recessed area large enough for a shallow cabinet or shelves to provide additional storage. Such a unit can become a design feature in the room.

In-wall storage

If you’re really tight on space, storage can be created taking a cue from the medicine cabinet. Since most “large” items for a bathroom are not more than 6 inches in size you can utilize the space inside your walls. Most walls are framed with 2 x 4 studs minimum, which means you have 3 1/2 inches available inside the wall. Accounting for the thickness of the back of the unit you’d only need another 3 inches or so to get you the 6 that you need.

To accomplish this you can build a 6 inch deep (inside clear dimension) cabinet unit recessed into the wall. With 2 x 4 studs that unit will stick out from the wall about three inches once the doors are added. You can use larger studs in the wall to get more depth to make the unit flush with the wall. Such a unit can span vertically as much as you want, and visually will look like a built-in cabinet.

Such a cabinet will need to be framed around it, but not to a width that gypsum board can’t span across the back side of the unit. Gypsum board can typically span up to 2 feet from center-of-stud to center-of-stud, so a unit just under 2 feet wide is viable. You can combine multiple units next to each other to get more storage.

The linen closet

If you’re bathroom is tight on space and/or you don’t want to store towels in the bathroom, be sure to design a linen closet adjacent to or near the bathroom for ease of access. This closet can also be used to store larger items and cleaning supplies that would typically be stored under a sink.

All photos and graphic images are by Cayl Hollis unless otherwise noted.