Make a Tiny Bathroom Work Wonders

Rough Linen My en suite is 3'6"x10': loo at one end, shower at the other, and a shallow sink opposite the pocket double doors in the middle. Can't get much smaller than that!

appytrails We added a second half bath from a part of a closet in the bedroom. It's 4x5, and I had a blast designing it. A large window helps keep it from feeling as tiny as it is, and we're really pleased with the result.

amyalexander60 I'm the queen of multi-tasking but that whole toilet-sink-in the-shower thing is going a bit too far for me. :)

olldbobbi Our master bathroom is the size of a peanut; hence I call it the Jimmy Carter room (I believe his family were peanut farmers?). We still make it work; it has become my husbands bathroom and I took the front, much larger bathroom for me.

wizardnm appytrails, I really like your sink. Can you give any info? I'd like to find one.

Lori Johnson Bathrooms with the zero-threshold/slanted tiled floor with toilets in the shower are super easy to keep clean. Just spray with water and it all goes down the drain. I have used the sink/toilet combos before and they are pure genius! I think it is weird to have a huge "over the top bathroom". How much time to you spend in there?!?!?

f_allen I love the no threshold showers -- not only do they open space but makes it so much easier for the handicapped to access.

astraea I still don't get that "zero threshhold" shower .. who wants to not only have to mop the entire floor, after every use, but wipe down everything else within splashing distance?! I also think it's funny that there was recently an article about "personalizing" bathrooms, which really added a lot of (pretty) clutter, but this article is all about "clear out the clutter"! The other article advocated framed individual mirrors, but this one shows the benefit of wall-to-wall mirrors enlarging a space. That's what I see as a problem with designers; as soon as they get everyone to buy stuff for one trend, they start advocating a new trend! Best for everyone to do what works best for them; trendy or not!!

lyvia Have you ever seen a sink over a bathtub? Seems like you could cover a third of the tub and still be able to bathe/shower. Would be awesome with a pale green recycled glass sink.

lyvia On second thought, it would probably work better to get a shorter deeper tub like a soaking tub.

Olga@Stardust-decorstyle.blogspot.com I think this is a very helpful article with great inspiration!

nooneycat Let's see some designs that have been converted into walk-in tubs and 17 inch toilets for boomers! Should be standard in home building anyway as well as wide door facings for wheel chairs (for young people, too) as well. Plan ahead!

coupleofbridges I'm grossed out by the sink/toilet combo. Still trying to figure out if you have to stand straddling the toilet bowl to wash your hands in the sink on top of it(?)

mcgrathinnola Taking a showere with a toilet is not my idea of cleaning up! Just sayin'....

Pangaea Interior Design, Portland, OR Just a note about zero threshold showers ... they don't always have no door, and you can also hang a shower curtain if you want to help contain water instead of treating the room as a wet room. I wrote another Ideabook a few months back on ideas for maximizing space in small bathrooms. Not all the bathrooms in the IB are small, but the ideas from them transfer well to small spaces. Here is the link:

ellentenhills Love the Caroma sink/toilet. Not only does it save space and water, it saves us the need to run insulated pipes over an uninsulated crawl space to exterior walls for a corner sink. The toilet will abut an insulated wall, so this gadget will save us a bundle in installation costs.

angela_flute52689 I have yet to see a bathroom on here as small as mine. What do you do when you rent and can't do any clever renovations besides Sterilite drawer carts, shower curtains, and little curios you barely have room for? BTW I don't have a picture, but above the toilet are 4 built-in shelves that have all the cleaning, hair, makeup, etc stuff on them that won't fit in the Sterilite.

Leatha Goldsmith LOVED LOVED my zero threshold shower. So easy to clean, great for washing animals, safer for elderly or handicapped. I LOVED it.

ittybittykitty Angela's bath looks like mine!

ittybittykitty I am intrigued with the tiny bathroom/shower combo. We are about to do a major remodel and have a downstairs bathroom (sink/toilet) that would be perfect for this. We only have one full bathroom upstairs (with no room to add a badly needed second in our remodel), so our family has to take turns using the shower up there.

Any thoughts on how weird it would be to turn our downstairs powder room into a wet room like the one featured in the article? It is about 3 feet by 7 feet, so a little bigger than the one in the picture. I did a google search and it seems like this is a pretty popular thing to do in the UK and Europe. Any realtors out there who have an opinion on if this would be good, or bad for resale? It seems like once you got over the idea of it being unusual to have a shower/toilet combo that it would be really practical, like for pet washing etc. Opinions please :)

appytrails Wizardnm: The sink comes all inclusive with wall mount vanity, adjustable glass shelf, faucet and plumbing fixtures. Pretty good deal for under $300 at Overstock.com

robinbrady10 I do not like the sink/toilet and shower in the same area. It is totally unsanitary. I stayed in a hotel room like this once, I felt totally dirty and germy with the toilet andshower sharing the same floor. It should be totally separated.

CAROLE MEYER The Coroma Toilet -Sink combo is brilliant!

urbansaltlake My loft in downtown Salt Lake City has a zero-threshold bathroom. I have a fabric shower curtain to divide the space. Never had an issue with getting the toilet wet and my tenant thinks it's the coolest thing

amaebi519 Had a zero-threshold shower when I lived in Asia; we also wore "bathroom slippers" when we went in there for anything other than a shower (common for the culture). Sqeegeeing it all the time out of necessity was a pain, but on the bright side, it was a lot cleaner than my current bathroom as a result!

mrsben Some excellent suggestions here and I can vouch that the
use of skylights, wall-to-wall mirrors and clear enclosures give an illlusion of space as three out of four of my bathrooms have at least one of these features.

In respect to zero-threshold showers which are popular in many countries; mobile trailers have been offering this design feature for years. So they are definitely not a new concept and though not my preference must be functional to some degree. As for extra storage, I feel the walls of a bathroom is the perfect place to intregate shallow shelving as the standard space beween wall joists usually measures 16" but can range from anywhere from 14 1/2" to 17 1/2" with a depth that will accommodate most toiletries. Why more niches or shelves are not built in, is beyond me.

With that said, my personal preference would be to have smaller and shallower sinks in the bathroom that allow for more counter space and my one wish is that Realtors would cease their crusade and propaganda 'that outrageous sized bathrooms .... and spacious work areas in kitchens' are necessary features that sale a house and builders in general would stop listening to them as IMO in 90% of the cases the excess space could be better utilized elsewhere.

I apologize if I have offended any Realtors and as said 'it is just my opinion'.

bvisailor Mrsben, I have to respectfully disagree here. My husband and I looked for two years at dozens of houses for sale in the 3,000-5,000 square foot range ONLY because we were in search of a house with a kitchen meant for actual COOKING. We finally gave up and hired an architect to design a house. The house we are leasing right now is 3850 sq. ft. with a tiny galley kitchen adjacent to the great room that looks lovely but is extraordinarily difficult to cook in. It's a huge house that I can barely cook a big meal in! There are very few rooms in the house that I would consider a better use of space than the kitchen.

I love the idea of the curbless shower to save space & add convenience to secondary showers. Definitely adding this to my guest bath.

doeroo I can't really get down with the idea of washing my hands on top of the toilet. But otherwise, very nice.

crayons I have a similar sink / toilet combo, but reversed ; )

Anne Pratt The sink/toilet combination is cracking me up (and so are all the comments)! I know my experience is unusual, but it sure reminds me of the "facilities" in a jail cell. (No, never did time . . . jail psychologist!)

aerinrae Call me crazy, but with 5 other people in my house and most of them under the age of 7, I often wish I could turn a hot shower of water right onto my toilet and have it drain away. I am quite a germophobe so maybe this just looks more pleasant from a distance. Aesthetically, I hate the idea.

docilana Please please tell me where people hang towels in the bathroom. Trying to figure out the best spots in my new house. Three small bathrooms. All the bathrooms here seem to have towels photoshopped out

mary954 The sink/toilet combo is totally normal in Japanese households. Since the toilet is always in a separate room (from the shower/ofuro and bathroom sink part), the sink/toilet combo is where you wash your hands before leaving the toilet room. At first I found washing my hands with water that went into the tank disconcerting, but I got over that quickly; Japan is the most fastidious, hygienically conscientious country I know.

annpala I really like some of these ideas, especially the zero-threshold showers. One question: How do you keep the TP dry if the toilet is in the shower?

bobdabuilder Wow this genius you can use the toilet while you brush your teeth and take a shower at the same time. This is multitasking at its essence. I'm gonna start building small bathrooms like this

Selly Kenya The bathrooms with the open showers totally skeeve me the *bleep* out! I can't stand toilets right next to the shower/bathtub. When I have moved I always look for bathrooms with toilets and baths not near each other. So this whole open shower thing...yuck!

@mary954 You are right. I was in Japan a few years ago and stayed at my then bfs home. The shower was separate from the toilets, in separate rooms. The tube was like a little cube that you could tip over into the standing shower part. The room also had a sink, washer and dryer.

The toilet room had a heated seat, buttons to press and the sink was on top of the tank.

Defiantly different and not my style! lol.

Samantha Schoech So, I just spent three weeks living in a house in Sweden with an zero threshold shower. It had three walls separating it from the rest of the bathroom but no door, lip or shower curtain. It was a total pain! Water got everywhere! We basically had to do a whole mop job after each shower.

But I do have to stick up for the Caroma sink/toilet combo, which we have in our tiny WC. There is nothing gross or awkward about it. No leaning over. It's well-designed. And all you nay-sayers realize, I hope, that the water coming out of the faucet is direct from the pipes--the same water that would come out of any faucet. In our tiny space it was the only solution and we love it.

sunny1066 I stayed in a London hotel once. The entire bathroom became a shower. You could sit on the the toilet and touch all 4 walls. It seemed weird at the time but makes more sense now. But I think you would need a good exhaust fan.

kimbogreen1 I have seen the sink toilet combos in Japan also. In a separate toilet a far superior hygiene and space saving system. They also have a totally wet area bathroom where you shower on the floor next to the bath and hop into the bath once clean. The whole family can use the same bath water this way.. The floor has a good slope towards the bath edge so it dries by itself quite quickly and the drain runs along the edge of the bath. The baths are deep so you can soak up to your shoulders and short so as not to overuse the water. If it spills over it goes straight down the drain. Fantastic bathing experience. Never liked baths before. Really enjoyed one every night while in Japan. Can't wait to transform my bathroom in Australia to the same style. I am going to start this renovation in about 4 weeks. In my other bathroom 1.3m by 3 metre I have put a zero threshold shower but used a frameless shower screen which works well. The toilet is next to the shower. I tiled to the ceiling with white tiles so the toilet doesn't stand out. I treated the glass with nanotech and haven't had to clean it in 6 months. Still looks new. Shower curtains work but confine the space visually