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ashley_spalding43

Help with primary suite layout - bathroom + closet

3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

We're doing an addition and remodel to our house. We currently have three small bedrooms, one of which we use as an office, and the other as a guest room/office becuause my husband and I both work from home. I am struggling with how to arrange the bathroom, closet, and bedroom in the new primary suite. We want a bathtub and standalone shower in the bathroom, only one sink, a 50-60" vanity for some counter space, and would love to have a walk in closet. The far wall is next to the backyard, and we could put a sliding door to the back if we keep that open, but that would mean we have to have a long hallway leading into the bedroom. Do you all have any more creative ways to lay this out than what I've come up with? (I haven't added windows yet but plan to have them over the bath/shower and in both bedrooms).

Guest bed and primary





Comments (10)

  • PRO
    3 years ago

    I do not understand the drawings you show a bed in the kitchen. Post a to scale floor plan of just the new bedrom/ bathroom/ closet space all windows , doorways and measurements clearly marked Post here in a comment in jpeg format , do not start another post .Show us where the plumbing is and waht size your bed is. Is it imperative you have a tub ?

    Ashley Spalding thanked Patricia Colwell Consulting
  • 3 years ago

    what you show is not readable.

  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    I think you're showing the old and the new on the same drawing? As others have said, this is confusing.

    But the new master suite is a simple layout with a closet-bath-bedroom? Okay, if I'm reading this correctly, here are my specific thoughts:

    - Simple layouts are always best. Thumbs-up.

    - The hallway to the bedroom will make things private. But the hallway is something like 10' long and dull ... on the positive side, you'll be walking towards a door with natural light /makes for a good focal point. I'd like to see low-wattage motion-sensored lights in this hallway to make it pleasant at night ... if you place two lights midway in this hallway, the light won't spill onto the bed and disturb a sleeper. How wide is this hallway? I hope no less than 42" ... personally, I'd steal a foot from the ample bath and closet and add a set of built-in bookshelves into this hallway. I'd love to see it maybe 48" high with space above for artwork or display items. A 42" hallway with a half-high bookshelf on the left wall would feel luxuriously wide. This would give you a ton of storage and would create a more pleasant walk than an empty hallway. Imagine 10' of this:


    - I would definitely flip-flop the closet and the bathroom. Why? Because "as shown", you have the toilet sharing a wall with the bedroom, which can be noisy. In contrast, the closet is a quiet space. It also means when you want to use your own bathroom during the day, you're a step closer.

    - After making this flip-flop, keep the water items on the wall shared with the closet. This will mean more quiet for the secondary bedroom on the other side ... and if (when) you someday need service of some sort to the bathroom, a worker would be able to break through your closet wall, which means preserving your expensive tile. You could even ask for access doors to be left in the closet, which would allow you to reach the water works simply by moving the clothing out.

    - I'd definitely want a window in the bathroom, even if it's a small one up high over the tub.

    - Is that an open shower next to the tub? Eh, okay but not great. Personally, given that you have a very large closet right next door, I think I'd keep the tub at the end of the bathroom and create a shower that kinda "dips into" /steals space from the closet. I'd be willing to steal a bit from the large bedroom to make this happen.

    - In designing the bathroom, don't forget to plan where your towels will hang.

    - I don't know where you stand on closets-opening-from-bathrooms, but I think I might be tempted to close off the closet-door-from-the-hallway and open the closet from the middle of the bathroom ... meaning you'd enter the middle of the closet instead of the end. Maybe.

    - I note that you don't have a linen closet IN the bathroom, and that's something I really like. If you open the clothing closet into the bathroom, you'd be able to use that space for bathroom storage too.

    - I like the door in the master bedroom (fire safety), but I'd like to see a few more windows. The best rooms have windows on two sides to allow natural light from two different directions.

    - This is a fairly large bedroom, and you're showing only a bed in it. What do you plan to do with the rest of this space? My old bedroom was roughly this size (13' wide) and a king bed with two nice-sized night stands fit nicely on the short wall, but I was always a little irritated by the wasted space at the foot of the bed.

    - Where is your laundry? Ideally it'd be near the master bedroom as a step-saver. Your closet is large ... could you have a small stack-up unit in the closet?

  • 3 years ago

    Has anyone advised you on the structural ramifications of this new layout? The existing central wall running top to bottom between the bedrooms is more than likely supporting the whole roof. You say both you and your husband work from home. I don’t see how this new plan will work well for that.

  • 3 years ago

    @Patricia Colwell Consulting Sorry for the confusing photo. I overlaid it on my existing layout to make sure I had the correct scale. I've removed the background and reposted with interior dimensions. The bed is a queen. This primary is an addition so there's no plumbing in the area currently. We need a tub because we use ours currently about 5 days a week.


    @thinkdesignlive We are working with someone to create plans and meeting with a contractor soon to get a ballpark on costs before we finalize plans. The plan has two micro offices off of the living room. Currently, I work in the guest room and my husband works in the third bedroom/office. It's a lot of wasted space with just him in there, but we both can't work in there because we talk over each other on calls. We've talked for years how we would love a wall down the center of the bedroom/office to create two small offices, so creating two micro offices works for us.


    @Mrs Pete Thank you for all of your detailed comments. I like the idea of a bookshelf along the hallway. Our laundry is in the garage. We could potentially design the primary closet to house it, but we'd really like to have a walk-in with clothes hanging on both sides. My understanding is 7 ft is the minimum width for this, so we don't want to reduce that and like the idea of having a good depth to the closet as well. Our current configuration of the house has tiny closets.



  • 3 years ago

    Here's how I arranged my bedroom and bathroom. Maybe this will spark some ideas for you? I particularly love having a second door to the bathroom into the hallway. That second door is used constantly. I also love how there is only one opening so we don't wake one another at night with bright lights shining into the bedroom, since I go to bed a little later than DH or if DH or I need to use the bathroom in the middle of thenight.

    DH has the reach in closet with a great closet system, and I have the walk in closet.

    The bed is against the wall with the windows but those windows are high.


    Windows above the bed

    View from bedroom pathway into master bath

    View from hall doorway into master bath.


  • 3 years ago

    Did you remove the whole home plan? I think it’s best to leave it up for context and for further debate. I think you could do better (meaning leave as much existing architecture as possible so your budget isn’t stratospheric)….and you need to solve your major issue of 2 work at home offices. Ideally these spaces would have natural light. I recommend thinking carefully about your wish list and what makes the most sense so you get the most bang for your buck.

  • 3 years ago

    This is from my recall of the whole home plan - black would utilize existing architecture and red would be new. I don’t know if it would work for your priorities but wanted to throw it out there….it’s certainly not a luxurious primary bath but it does give you more office space and a laundry area that’s not in the garage. And the kitchen would be closer to the garage for ease of everyday groceries, etc. again this was trying to keep as much existing architecture as reasonably possible.

  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    @thinkdesignlive, you've got an impressive memory. I'd hardly be able to draw my own layout from memory that well! Here is a clean pic of the whole home plan as it currently is.



    We want to extend out over the concrete porch and up to 8 feet beyond it into the backyard. The things we would like to get out of this renovation are:

    • bigger kitchen with island
    • second bathroom connected to the primary bedroom
    • proper primary suite with bathroom and walk-in closet (as you can see our current closets are tiny) and more space in the primary (the 14' across is good but the 10' depth leaves very little space between the wall and the end of our queen bed)
    • walk-in shower and separate bath in primary bathroom bc we are bath people
    • two separate small office spaces (5'3" x 8') is sufficient instead of one larger office that only one of us can use
    • better dining room/living room configuration. As is, the dining space is small with too many doors and entryways. The L-shape of this room leaves too much deadspace by the door.
    • entry to the backyard through either the living room or kitchen because we entertain a lot out there.

    The first plan we received had the entire left side of the house remaining as is, a new bathroom being created on the right side of the current kitchen and a big kitchen where the patio currently is. It felt disjointed and only solved our desire to have a bigger kitchen and second bath, though it didn't give us one attached to the primary) and left a lot of deadspace in what is currently the left side of the kitchen because that became open space to get from the living area to the kitchen with widened openings. In a fairly small house (currently 1,090 square feet), we can't afford to have big dead spaces that don't serve a purpose. The revised plan we got looks similar to this, which is obviously a large endeavor because it requires blowing out a lot of interior walls and beams to keep things up.

    I'm very open to different ideas for how to achieve the bulleted items that I can relay to the designer drawing up plans. Thank you for all of your comments thus far.