Bathroom layout/design help

[peter57]

Rose,
re the keys in the door, you could always say they were there incase i did fall and some one had to come and help me, saves on breaking in. :lol::lol:

cheers
Peter

 

[brooksea]

Keys on the outside of the door have been a norm around here! Thought my husband was the only one that ever did that! Oh, and just leave the keys in the ignition of your car when not parked in the garage. Makes it easier for others to take a drive when they want and enter the house at will! LOL

 

[rose]

So true! Ironically there was some weird noise in the house last night. I think it was ice in the plumbing pipes, because it started right when the dishwasher was finishing up. What a pain. The dog was actually in his bed asleep, the cat was on the bed with me, asleep, then the noise starts. So I was up prowling around trying to figure out what I was hearing, the animals woke up, and started in with their usual squabbling (its like having toddlers in the house, I swear), in my travels through the house, I noticed I hadn't locked the front door, and I was thinking how great it was that I noticed it before going to sleep for the night. Yeah, that's me, on the ball!

On a serious note, my daughter was telling me there is a new danger of being burgled. People with GPS in their car will have their car broken into. The thieves then punch in "Home" on the GPS, drive to the home, use the garage door opener to gain access to inside the home. So.... for those of you with GPS's, I heartily suggest putting in the address of a neighbor living close by, but out of the garage opener's range; preferably a neighbor you don't like all that well LOL

 

[BarryG]

How about programming "home" with the location of the nearest police station? I don't think that anyone but the severely geographically challenged should have to program their actual home into their car.

 

[rose]

OK, it appears I hijacked myself with the keys in the door story, so, now to return our attention to the bathroom remodel...

Joel, I read your comment about bathroom size (on bugs and problems forum thread) I agree, it is a concern to us too. However, according to all of the disability literature, the bathroom does meet the needed parameters for a handicap bathroom. Its so hard to imagine myself confined to a wheelchair, and maybe I won't be. Either way, we took as much space as we could get at, and made the most of it. Time will tell the rest.

For those who could not view album, here are some of the photos from it, along with some of the comments I'd posted with them...

The bathroom was created by using the area which had been a tiny powder room, short hall and coat closet. It opens into the foyer. The bathroom door is angled. The contractor did a nice job of blending several floor surfaces. The foyer and hall are granite, and the bedroom is hardwood. However, with the moving of wall to widen the hallway, the granite could not be matched. He put in an area of black stone, and used a marble threshold between the granite of foyer and the tile of bathroom floor. The room you see to the left of the bathroom is my bedroom.

I've been joking here at home that the design plan is like staying in a hotel room on a layover. Really it is! Look at how its laid out. Now if only I could get the newspaper guy to slide my USA Today under the front door, rather than leaving it at the end of the driveway :smile:

Back to the practical stuff...

There is 24" between basin and toilet. Right now we have a narrow shelf (3" deep) to hold some toiletry supplies. Its a temporary fix as we look for other ways to create more usable surfaces without taking away from open space that could be needed for wheelchair eventually.

We still need to add shelving or cabinetry for towel storage. The pipe seen exiting from the basin, is another example of how the duct work complicated putting a full bath in this space. Right now the basket of towels is set on the heat vent, and its very nice having warm towels to use after the shower We had the basket over by the toilet while the weather was hot enough to run the air conditioning.

 

[DgtofTNfan]

Thanks for moving the pics to this thread Rose. I can see them! Your bathroom is lovely and I think everyone should have heated towels.

 

[georgia]

It is hard to tell from pic but how big is your bathroom?

 

[rose]

The bathroom is irregularly shaped (by necessity) It is widest where the basin and toilet are, and then it angles to a narrower shower area. The 32"doorway is where it angles in.

Here are the dimensions: W 6'2" (74") X L 8'6" (102") The shower area is 45"W

I know that the first photo shown in my previous post makes it a bit hard to figure out what you're really looking at because of the mirror reflection. In retrospect I should have closed the bathroom door before taking the picture.

Here are more photos,which might be of help or those dealing with tight spaces too.

The first shown is taken looking into the bathroom, my back is to the bedroom.

Next photo is taken from inside bath, looking out. Room seen beyond stairway is living room,

Following photo is taken with my back to the living room. The bathroom door stands ajar. Door seen on right is the front door to house. There is enough room for the bathroom door to open all the way back flush against the foyer wall.

Photo #5 is looking straight in.

#6 shows the second drain in bathroom floor. I remarked about this in the album. (still not sure if this was necessary for the contractor to do) He said this was needed for overflow water from shower, I guess because there is no lip on shower area to contain the water. I don't like how it looks, its so BIG! Maybe someday we'll change out the drain material from plastic to metal and it might look better then. Most of the time I just keep a throw rug over it unless shower is being used. In the previous photo, that blue rug is covering it.

The funny thing about the size issue, is this is actually a large house, but, between plumbing and heat/air duct work, plus,weight bearing walls we did not want to move, this seemed the best solution all the way around. Next thing you know, I'll be giving you a photo tour of the entire downstairs LOL. But, on that subject, one nice thing about making the former family the bedroom, is there is a door directly into the kitchen, so no need to loop around.

 

[joelc]

Concerning the drain, you wil be happy it is there when you are confined to a wheelchair and cannot transfer. Water will splash out because there is no room for a shower chair and a second person to bathe you.