I'm a little confused about the layout. Are those little "rooms" to the left and right of the doors actually separate vanities and sinks? What's next to the toilet? In my current house, we have a window over the tub and like a lot. If I were to replace the tub with a shower, I'd try to keep the window, with its sill at about waist height. You'd have to make sure that it's waterproof and, if necessary, replace the glass with frosted glass, for privacy.

I have to say that's about the worst bathroom layout I've ever seen. 4 doors in a bathroom? What were they thinking???

I'd go for radical redo:
-extend the LH closet so it's the full depth of the space (eliminating sink and 2 doors)
-leave the tub where it is and rearrange everything else in the new rectangle. How big is that, BTW? ~10'x8'?

You can play around with shifting/shuffling the shower, sink(s) and toilet, depending on your wants/needs around shower size and 1 vs. 2 sinks. I really hate the current "front and center" placement of the toilet.

I'd go for radical redo:
-extend the LH closet so it's the full depth of the space (eliminating sink and 2 doors)
-leave the tub where it is and rearrange everything else in the new rectangle. How big is that, BTW? ~10'x8'?

I had a similar thought. I would extend the RH closet, turn the LH closet into a shower and leave the toilet where it is.

Thanks all, I'll try to add some pictures tomorrow when it's light enough.

MTV-what's in the corners are the two closets, the vanities are open. There is a wall on the right side of the toilet, not quite sure why I didn't get that on the drawing. The vanities are squashed between the entrance doors and the closet doors but they are just vanities. Leaving a window that low in a shower is typically not recommended because it's very difficult to water proof them when the water goes directly on them.

Weedy-Yeah it's pretty strange isn't it? (Mild understatement)

Deke-If the BR was naked right now it would be about 16' wide and 8.5" deep. So yes, if you extended one of the closets and made it 6' wide which I think is about the workable minimum for a walk-in, it would leave a 10x8 rectangle on whichever side remained.

All-Note that the existing closets are only 5.5' feet at their widest points, so I think if they were extended as walkins, they would have to get a little wider. Does everyone agree on that?

I've also considered making the left hand closet just be a wall of closet and come out where that left vanity is now and then extend it on into the bedroom. There is a big chunk of space there on your left when you come into the bedroom because the bed has to be centered between the two doors. I have a big wardrobe there but a big wall of closets with sliders might work. I'm not married to the idea of walk-ins, particularly since the space is kind of tight and with a walk-in you lose a lot of usable space because you have to leave room to walk. But I wouldn't mind a walk-in either, as long as it didn't have a 90 degree angle in it so you can't reach your clothes :-)

I'll see if can draw that up.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming. It's great to get things to think about.

One other thing I should mention. The electrical panel is in the right hand closet on the right-hand wall. Probably not compliant with current code but the power comes into the house from the pole on that back corner, so moving it would not be fun. Assuming this could be permitted without moving the panel, we definitely can't put the shower in that back right corner, or then we do have to move it for sure.

Here is what I meant about wall of closets on left hand side. It makes 2 8' long closets but only 2' deep so need slider doors of some sort.

Leaves a lot of open space to play with.

Another one I've played with but access to the back right corner would be tough, would have to shorten the vanity or something I think.

And finally with a 6x8 walkin on the right, which BARELY clears the big window and a blank slate on the left.

How do you arrange a 10x8' bath?

OK I"m clearly obsessing now but if I gut up and admit all the plumbing needs to be moved it gets a lot easier

Darn. No place for mirror if sink is under window. Might need to put the closet door back in the bedroom and flip that vanity 90 degrees.

Keep the shower in the tub space and put the vanity on the left wall with the second vanity perpendicular to it on the top wall to the left of the shower.

"Darn. No place for mirror if sink is under window."

A couple of times when there has been a window over a sink, I've put a hinged mirror over the window. Think of a traditional medicine cabinet with a mirrored door. Except when you open this "medicine cabinet", you see the world as it really is through the window, instead of seeing all your pill bottles that can distort your view of the world.

One time I did a mirror on sliding barn door type of hardware. I prefer the faux medicine cabinet door.

Thanks Karen. Unfortunately the shower can't go in the tub space unless we do something with the window. It's a 4x4 window 36 inches off the ground. So I am trying to avoid having to brick that up, as we don't have enough bricks. Might still come to that though because the window is definitely an issue.

Check out Sombreuil's bathroom from Chloenkitty's thread on wainscoting, link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Sombreuil's bathroom

Interesting idea Mongo, thanks.
How well would a pocket door work if it's in the wall of the closet? Could we still get the rods attached OK and stuff like that?
What does everyone think of this iteration?

My personal opinion is that pocket doors are fine for occasional use doors. Mostly open, seldom closed. Or mostly closed, seldom opened. If a pocket door will be used numerous times a day? Or if I'll have my hands full? Then I find them frustrating. And this is "good hardware" pocket doors.

Again; My personal opinion.

What is the square box in the bathroom?

How about shower in upper left corner with the long side on the left. Toilet in the bottom left corner. Switch door swing. Vanity in bottom right corner, long side against bedroom. Square box in top right corner. Second, smaller vanity on top wall between window and shower.

The door on the bottom left is only about 22" from the left hand wall which doesn't leave enough room for the toilet on the left. The door can't move to the right, because the wall between the two doors is where the bed has to go.You did get me thinking though about reorienting the shower. I'll have to see where that leads.

The square box just represents storage. At one point it was floor to ceiling linen storage but when I moved it under the window it just became counter height drawers or shelves or something. Could be left out if need be.

Thanks!

This post was edited by lucas_tx on Sat, Oct 25, 14 at 23:45

The door can't move to the right, because the wall between the two doors is where the bed has to go.

I was thinning the closet would open from inside the bathroom as shown above, so there wouldn't be problem with the placement of the bed.

OK will have to try it that way. Have been vacillating on where to put entrance to closet.

Thanks!

I tried playing with this on Paint and the problem I am having is that the grid lines aren't to scale with the measurements.

Thanks Pal. I apologize, I've had a hard time getting it right. Here is another one that I was already working on this morning that hopefully is more correct.

In this one, i decided to try giving up on the 6' wide closet and keeping as many existing dimensions and plumbing as possible.

So the these closet walls represent the existing walls if you just extend wall on the right side of the toilet to meet the closet on the top right. Move the vanity to the existing shower area and take down the left-hand wall of the old shower, which leaves 5" more for the vanity.

Move the shower to the current left-hand closet. This requires moving the drain from bathtub area to shower and figuring out whether to leave water on the right-hand side of the new shower with a solid wall, or run water for shower on the left hand side of the new shower, leaving two glass walls. Still a lot less plumbing to do than before

In the above layout I'm thinking... move the door all the way to the left corner; turn the toilet 90'counter clockwise/ facing the left wall; create 3' bump-out for toilet into the closet; run a double vanity (5'8" ish) from the window to the toilet alcove.

You might get a bit more space in your closet, the bathroom entry would have better traffic flow and I think it's nice to have a natural light source perpendicular to the mirror. Plus, there might be room for a bigger shower.

One option would be to leave the door off the closet, just trim it out as an opening. We don't have a door on our closet which is located in our bathroom and I don't miss it in the least. We also considered a pocket door but decided against it at the time. It works well for us. Our layout is much different so you don't really look right into the closet, but it's an idea to consider.

Benje-The problem with moving the door to the bottom left of the bathroom is that the left hand wall of the bedroom is the only uninterrupted wall in that room for furniture placement. Right now there is an antique wardrobe there for example but any piece of furniture would require dodging the furniture to get in the door.

New gardener-Leaving the door off might be an option. An always open pocket door would be the other option with it closed only on special occasions :-)

Thanks everyone.