I don't think it would work well in practice. Say your teenage daughter is done showering and your son is using the toilet. Daughter is stuck in the shower room until son is done.
You don't need a bathroom per child. Sharing is a necessity in life.
But this set up wouldn't work well in reality, I don't think.
I prefer hall bathrooms to jack and Jill also.

My sorority house in college was built the same. We also had perfect inlets for twin beds so they took up less living space.
While I like the idea I would consider resale and teenagers/guests. One bathroom for kids and one for guests is nice since we know they never fully clean up their messes.

With four kids, I would prefer 2 bathrooms. If one kid is sick, he could monopolize the bathroom. Also, if you are still in the house after they leave, it would be nice to have two bathrooms for when they visit. Also, it would be beneficial for guests. I also think it would help resale. You dont have to build them fancy. White subway tile and simple fixtures would help keep the cost down.

wysmama, how would a showerer be stuck if someone is using the toilet, they are in different spaces with closed doors? This is a hallway bath, I am not a fan of jack and jill for sure

Jolene, I figured anything different could hurt resale. We hope to have a guest house with bathroom for overnight guests but couldn't care less if my kids friends saw the mess in their bathroom if playing upstairs, haha.

rockybird, two bathrooms would probably make more sense when they are older. For some reason, a 3.5 bathroom house seems ridiculous while a 2.5 bathroom sounds right, haha

Also, I don't believe in the "kids won't use the same bathroom at the same time" because my brother and I would share a bathroom with a door between the sinks and the toilet/shower all the time, even as teens. But maybe because we were competitive swimmers, we never got hung up about walking out of the shower area with a towel that covered everything, haha.

Remind me how large the under air square footage of the house is as well as how many bedrooms in the main house?

cpartist, we are currently thinking 4 bedrooms, around 2,500 sqft not counting garage with an unfinished basement around 1,000 sqft and a guest "house" around 300 sq ft

We call them 'bath' rooms, but toilets and sinks get the most use. Young families generally prefer at least one bathroom with toilet, sink and tub (for bathing small children).

Many families of six have managed with one full bathroom, but most people want two rooms that include bathing facilities, plus a separate half-bath.

Chisue, there would be a half bath on the main floor and also a master bath, so 2.5 baths total in the house if we go with one bathroom as the "kids" bathroom

Ok you say you may have 4 children. How many do you have now and what are the ages? I grew up in a family of 5 and we had 3 full bathrooms. The master, the kids bath, and a full bath downstairs where the shower was NEVER used except for my Mom hanging laundry.

You probably won't save much as you are showing 5 pieces there - and you only need 6 for another complete bath. You COULD do a full bath and a half bath which might be more straightforward and accomplish the flexibility you desire.

We have three kids and are building a house. Our upstairs floor is not huge with only about 1100 square feet. In that space we have four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Our two girls will share one bathroom and our son will get an ensuite. My three currently share a bathroom and it is a nightmare at teeth brushing time only. Otherwise they seem to enjoy baths/showers at different times/days but brushing teeth is a huge headache as that happens before we leave for school and bedtime which is same for all kids. I can't wait for them to each have a space to deal with it!

cpartist, we only have two right now and I definitely don't need them to have their own bathrooms if we stick with two (they are both girls, one and three years old). Part of the reason why I don't think we will be building until we know for sure we want more than 2, as we wouldn't need 4 bedrooms either! And I definitely don't care for a full bath on the first floor as I suspect we also would never use the shower, same as your family.

just_janni, interesting thought on doing a 1.5 for the kids.. I would think if a toilet is really needed while theirs is occupied though they could go to the master or the half bath downstairs. And yes, as drawn, there are a lot of fixtures, I probably wouldn't have all those sinks in reality, haha

Alison, I despise cleaning bathrooms and my kids are young enough still they won't be helping clean (at least well) for a while yet, haha. Teeth brushing is the main reason I would want more than one sink for them in any case!

So, if I understand correctly, that wouldn't be the only bath in the house? it will be additional to a) master bath and b) half bath downstairs?

Mine are 10,9,6 and this year we taught them to clean the bathrooms. It isn't the most amazing job in the world but I'm so happy to off load it to them and then do a bit more of a clean as needed.

That said all of this is bonus. More than one bedroom, more than one bathroom, it clearly can be done with less but it is wise to think through what you really want and why before diving in!

Build a workhorse bathroom about 10’ wide x 15’ long, with the door on a 10’ wall about 30-36” from the right corner. Along the 15’ right wall, have a bank of 24-30” deep built-ins floor to ceiling that can hold everything from sheets and towels to a complete wardrobe for each child, including underwear and shoes. The bottom of some built-ins can be three drawers, with butt doors above the drawers for hanging clothes. Potentially use part of the built-in area for a stacked washer and dryer.

On the 15’ left wall, have an enclosed toilet (with door) at the far end with the door facing the built-ins. Next, have an enclosed tub with a shower surround lengthwise on the long wall. Finally, have a 5’ vanity with a centered sink on the 10’ wall to the left of the door. Run a large mirror the length of the vanity.

Advantages:

The built-ins can easily handle clothes for 4-5 children, freeing up space in their bedrooms to allow a built-in desk or entertainment center. It turns the bedroom from just a place to sleep into a personal space to study, watch TV and entertain friends. And it eliminates the need for dressers or chest of drawers in bedrooms, saving money and floor space.

The tub/shower surround serves a large age continuum from kindergarten to teens and older.

The vanity allows two make-up stations.

The enclosed toilet provides privacy, as does a frosted shower door.

How It Works:

Kids take baths or showers at night, eliminating a lot of bottleneck for school mornings. With underwear and PJs in the bathroom, they can change there and have a single collection point for dirty clothes.

Mornings, boys can quickly change, eat breakfast, brush teeth and shave if needed.

Mornings, girls can quickly change, do make-up, eat breakfast, comb hair and brush teeth. If necessary, one can eat while other applies make-up.

aprilneverends, yes, there would be another 1.5 baths in the house. 1 regular bath with no division between fixtures doesn't seem like enough as the kids bath but 2 seems excessive so I was thinking of this as an alternative between the two which would allow a lot of kids to use it at once.

Alison, great job getting them to clean at those ages!! I am definitely trying to nail down certain wants in advance to make decision making easier in the future!

Hal, that sounds a lot like the setup we had in college, though it was more cubbies for bath supplies than full wardrobes. I probably wouldn't go that route as I don't believe in forever homes at age 30 so resale would be tough with something that different than the norm! But thanks for your thoughts!

ooo, Mark, are you telling me to go a little crazy?? hahaha ;) I am sure there is something a little crazy about anyone that goes into this custom home building process, hahaha

Until I started the 10th grade, the setup I described was what our family used. We did have extra storage in bedrooms but this worked well.

First, note that your sketch doesn't work.

I drew it up on a computer program as you'd done it ... tub is a standard 30x60 ... toilet is standard, and I used a pedestal sink next to the toilet because it's the smallest option ... the duplicate sinks are in 36" vanities. Note that the doors just don't work, and the whole thing requires 110 square feet.

To make the doors work, you could scoot the tub door down, but that leaves a bunch of empty space in the tub room, and the whole thing requires 132 square feet.

I think you're overthinking it. I'd go with two simple three-piece bathrooms:

- These simple three-piece baths are 9x5, so the two of them require 90 square feet total ... 20 square feet less than the complicated layout.

- This is economical and easy to build: It keeps all your water-items in one wall ... water walls are 6" deep instead of the standard 4" that are used in most interior walls, so this makes sense. It also means your plumber's work is consolidated, and it gives you only one wall that can potentially spring a leak in the future. It's one door and one sink less than your complicated plan, and I suspect it's less square footage.

- Even if you go on to have four kids, 50% of your kids can be in the bathroom (alone) at the same time ... and they'll have all bathroom facilities at their disposal.

- This doesn't allow for a window like you have in your drawing, but you can go with a small horizontal window above the shower.

Unconventional can be good; in fact, we're doing something rather unconventional /kind of European with our master bath ... but in this case, it seems to me that simple works best.

Yes MrsPete, my sketch was just to make sure everyone understood what I meant by my words, not surprised that when its drawn to scale it doesnt work, haha. This was another version I had made a while back that is to scale while I was trying to figure out what I was thinking. Tub area is 5x6, storage hall area is 4x5, toilet closet is 4x7, and sink area is 6x6 to make it 114 sq ft, but it would have lots of windows which also adds to cost!

I would love to see your unconventional master bath!! You can just point me to another thread if needed! I definitely see your point about two standard bathrooms being more economical, just trying to figure out for myself if I was thinking of doing something different for the sake of being different or if it would actual make life easier for my family!

Also, what computer program are you using? :)

whoops it didn't post with the other post!

This is a hallway bath, I am not a fan of jack and jill for sure

I am confused about this statement. If you are talking about direct access from the bedrooms to the bathrooms, then I feel separate baths are fine. However, if the access is off a common hallway, having two baths right beside each other seems silly to me, so I would go with a sink area and a separate tub and toilet.

Yes bry, not direct bedroom access baths, as 3 bedrooms would need access and I don't particularly love jack and jills. And no way is each kid bedroom getting its own bathroom. I agree having them right next to each other seems silly and probably wont go for that if we do decide to have two kids baths! Even if it would definitely be the most economical placement, haha

Mrs. Pete has some great ideas. keeping your water from the same source, but with two separate you'll definitely have an easier time selling. best of luck!

I think that a girls bath and a boys bath might be nice - perhaps the girls bath has one sink and more storage / makeup area and a tub and the boys get 2 sinks and a shower unit, etc. I wouldn't think it's weird if it works for you and your family!

One of the nice things about a custom home is that it CAN work for you and you don't have to be weirded out by unconventional things. I totally did not build my house for resale - but I can't wait to live there. Would it take longer to sell? sure. But if I built for the market, I'd have much less enjoyment out of it while I was living there and I might as well grab a production builder home in a cookie cutter neighborhood and deck it out for the Joneses.

You are way overthinking one small element of a house design. And it's at the wrong end of decision-making. Really!

Two baths, or two compartmentalized baths, will work fine. Whatever.

The larger and more important issue is how the baths may...or may not...be a compatible element in the overall, large house, site planning and budgeting environment.

Are you giving this level of analysis and thought to the bigger, more influential issues of your site, overall house concepts, budget and schedule?

Forget bathrooms. Forget door swings. Forget hardware. Forget plumbing fixtures.

Work out the big and most influential concepts first.

Then tackle the little things.

Really.

It's called a 3 way bath and it's a lot more common then you'd think. We just finished our new home build and we put one in. We love it and our only other bathroom is our ensuite.
Who cares whether an architect thinks you're looney.. my draftsman argued with me about everything, but I know what I want and now I have a house with no compromises.
It's definitely cheaper than 2 full bathrooms.. one sink, one tub, one shower, one toilet.. instead of 2. It is, however, a bit more expensive than building one "normal" one - more walls, doors, insulation, windows etc. In our case, we even had to put in an extra fan (our sink area doesn't have a window, so building code required one).

I would love to see your unconventional master bath!!

Our plan started with a first-floor master bedroom /bath plus an extraordinarily poorly placed powder room. You noted above that you don't like cleaning bathrooms -- I'm with you on that. Since it's just me and my husband most of the time, I don't see the point in two toilets on the first floor ... so we moved the powder room next to the master bath and removed the toilet from the master bath. So we're planning the powder room to be adjacent from BOTH the master bedroom AND the main house ... and then we have the bathing facilities separate. Unlike toilets-shoved-in-closets, the powder room is 5' the short direction, so it's large enough for comfort, and I only have one toilet to clean on the first floor.

I've removed the other parts of the house, so it looks kind of confusing ... you'll have to trust me that it fits in nicely with the rest of the house ... at the foot of the tub, that's a little ledge and a TV for my husband ... that's a linen tower to the left of the vanity ... that's the shower head floating in mid-air /obviously it'll be attached to the wall:

I definitely see your point about two standard bathrooms being more economical, just trying to figure out for myself if I was thinking of doing something different for the sake of being different or if it would actual make life easier for my family!

Walking yourself through various options is a good way to determine that. We personally are sold on the above bath layout because my husband likes to stay in the tub for hours at a time (he often "reserves" the tub before a, so we decided it makes sense to place the toilet close-but-separate.

Also, what computer program are you using? :)

HGTV Home and Landscape Platinum Suite. It's nothing special.

I drew up your latest suggestion in this program. Concerns:

- If you're trying to have kids share, you need a sink in the toilet closet. Otherwise, you still have a problem with the kid in the toilet closet coming out and having no sink available to him ... if you're going to do a toilet-in-a-closet, I'd put a small pedestal sink in there too.

- You have a bottleneck in the sink area. If the kids are using this area at the same time, you're going to have people trying to squeeze past people at the sink.

- I forgot the exact square footage and have already cleared it out of my computer program, but it was in the 130s ... so it's still bigger than two simple bathrooms and has water walls spread around.

However, if the access is off a common hallway, having two baths right beside each other seems silly to me

I think the two baths side-by-side appear silly because they're floating in mid-air. If we had a whole floorplan and could see one bedroom to the left of the back-to-back baths /two bedrooms to the right of the back-to-back baths, it'd look different. It'd look like the bathrooms each "belonged" to those bedrooms, though they're accessed through the hall.

Mrs. Pete has some great ideas. keeping your water from the same source, but with two separate you'll definitely have an easier time selling. best of luck!

I agree that most people would be attracted to two plain bathrooms rather than a "creative" layout.

With resale in mind, here's a question: How long do you anticipate staying in this house? If you're going to move before the kids are teens, I'd say go with one simple bathroom. One bathroom would be enough for them until they start in with make-up /hair and shaving.

I think that a girls bath and a boys bath might be nice - perhaps the girls bath has one sink and more storage / makeup area and a tub and the boys get 2 sinks and a shower unit, etc

That'd work fine if the OP ends up with a nice even split of 2 girls and 2 boys ... but since half these children aren't even conceived yet, that's a guess.

I think the problem is that the doors take up a lot of space. We have a "toilet room" and a "sink and tub room" that both open onto our upstairs hallway. The house was built in 1920. We are fine with it; you can use the toilet (but not flush! then it messes up the shower) when someone is taking a shower. But when people renovate these houses they usually make them into a more conventional bathroom.