With four bedrooms, I think that three bathrooms would be preferable.

What is common in your neighborhood?

At least 21/2 are needed to maintain resale value in my opinion.

I think it depends on the location of the bathrooms.

A two bathroom home with a powder room - i.e. 2 1/2 baths is a fairly common configuration. Most people like to have a powder room to avoid having casual guests use family bathrooms.

Having a master plus one bathroom for kids is pretty standard especially if there is a third toilet to use for an emergency :-)

In my experience some pre WW II homes were built with maid's quarters. My friend who lives in what was once just a middle class type of home has a room off the kitchen with a tiny bathroom like the one you describe. Her home also has a very tiny powder room as well.

While I love a great shower, I think a powder room is preferable to most people versus a spiral shower.

Thank you Helen. I really appreciate your perspective since we are currently a two person household. I'm thinking if there's a way we can do it, to keep the 3 bathrooms and make one of the smaller ones larger.

Littlebug, thank you for your response. I did not find any four bedroom homes in my area, only 3 bedroom. And I did not find any 3 bathroom homes in my area, only 2 1/2, so I really appreciate the feedback.

I would prefer three bathrooms, over 2 larger ones. Nice if someone has company and extra bathroom space is needed. One can be smaller. Just decorate it so its a great looking space. Size wont matter on a third bathroom. Put your money into making all three bathrooms beautiful, rather than changing them all around.

If you are planning to move relatively soon (less that 5 years or so), you probably won't recoup the large amount of money you would have to spend to redo 2 bathrooms.

But if you are going to be there a long time, and you would enjoy some fresh bathrooms, and are willing to part with the money, then the financial outlay makes more sense. You'll get more design/layout help if you post a drawing showing where these bathrooms are located relative to the bedrooms and common areas. For example, if the smallest bathroom is adjacent to the medium one, perhaps the medium one can be enlarged and the smallest one converted to a powder room. That would give you 2 good sized bathrooms and one powder room which is a very common configuration in a 4 bedroom house.

Thank you AJCN for the great advice and suggestion. I think that would be the perfect solution. Because that was my dilemma the smallest bathroom is next to the medium bathroom and is kind of locked in by an exterior supporting wall and hallway into the bedroom with a huge walk-in closet on the other side. The problem is the smallest bathroom is in the worst shape shower needs to be replaced and sink needs to be replaced where the medium bathroom is really nice. The tub is nice and vanity nice. And the toilet is nice though. I'd hate to rip up. A nice bathroom instead of the one that needs to be replaced anyway.

Thank you Cat_KY. My husband has wanted to Give me the spiral shower that I've liked for several years and now we live in the house that makes that possible, but I didn't want to waste money by possibly losing it decreasing the value of the property If we did convert the two bathrooms into one.

Depends upon the rest of the house and the neighborhood.

My daughter lives in a 4 bedroom condo in Virginia and it has 3-1/2 baths! Two are en suite bathrooms for my daughter and granddaughter, 1 guest bathroom on the bedroom level and a powder room on the living, dining, and kitchen level! If you live in a multi level house, having bathrooms on each floor is preferable especially for those of us who live with pain on a daily basis (Fibromyalgia and Osteo Arthritis)!

Thank you Mrs. Pete. Sounds like I will have to do some research on homes in the area. Most of the nicer homes go for around $400,000 with 3 bedrooms and 1 and 1/2 baths. Most of the bathrooms are teeny tiny even in that price range.

Bev, I will keep you in prayer. Every morning when I wake up, I thank God that I don't have pain. I don't know how you cope. Fortunately, the house is all on one floor. I'd rather have two stories like I'm used to because it's more of an opportunity for exercise.

Thanks! I have been dealing with Fibro for almost 22 years and you actually do get used to living with pain everyday except when it is really intense.

You mentioned that the smallest bathroom is adjacent to a walk in closet. Can that space be used for an expanded bathroom?

P.S. what is a spiral shower?

AuntThelma, thank you for your response. There is a problem in that there is a pull down staircase to the attic in between the bathroom and walk in closet, so the steps would also have to be relocated and make the walk in closet a rectangle instead of a square. It can be done, but then it makes the bedroom a lot smaller. A spiral shower is a walk in with no door that spirals in like a conch shell. So you walk in a circular pattern and the shower head is in the center of the spiral and water does not flow out because of the spiral walls.

Thank you weedyacres. I just posted a sketch of the area I'm considering for the upgrade. It is actually an addition and the house is built on a slab, so I don't know if it's possible to run drains to even make this possible.

What's in the long skinny rooms on either side of the bathrooms? Are those both bedrooms? Is the plan to scale?

Yes, weedyacres. They are both bedrooms. Not to scale, but pretty close. The one with the walk in closet we use to store our wood for our fireplace, so it is sort of an above ground basement. The other room has huge windows and eventually we want to put a dance floor in there because we are ballroom and Latin dancers and we need practice space. I keep both those rooms at 50 degrees in winter to save on heating oil and only turn up the heat when needed.

So both of these 2 bedrooms are in the range of 10'x30'? That's not real functional for bedrooms, which, I suppose is why you use them for wood storage and dance practice. :-) And if you combined the 2 bathrooms you'd have something like 5'x20', which is not ideal for a bathroom either. You could basically put your spiral shower at the far end, the toilet next to it, and the vanities along the wall next to them.

Then who would use this bathroom? If the two adjacent room options aren't bedrooms, someone would be traipsing across the house to use it. And then you'd just have 1 other bathroom serving the other 2 bedrooms, one of which is a master?

It's not sounding like a very good idea to me. But if you can post a full floor plan to show where the other bedrooms and bathroom are, that might generate some options or feedback.

Dear Weedyacres: One bedroom is 13 x 25, the other is 12 x 18. The other bathroom which is not in the drawing serves two bedrooms and one of those bedrooms is really tiny. On the other side of it is the dining room, so no way to make that smaller. I guess the only possibility at this point would be to loose the tiniest bedroom and turn the current master bath into one with the spiral shower, but I don't like that idea at all because we mostly heat that part of the house with the fireplace and I wouldn't want to loose a bedroom in the main section. Plus I think that really might affect resale value. Probably best to leave as is. I am so thankful for everyone's input because I think it's helping me to see that the spiral shower is a no go. Actually, the house isn't the main feature for me. The main feature is the two acres and lots of woods and the sun room with wall to ceiling windows. And the room we will use for dancing which actually brings me to another problem. The house is on a slab and we want hardwood. Sounds like engineered is the only way to go. We keep this room about 50 degrees and we want something that won't hurt our feet like tile would do. Thanks again for your help. I really do appreciate it very much.