Try uploading your floor plan again, this one doesn't show the bathroom. Also, labelling the taped out sections would be useful since it is not obvious which represent the toilet and sink.

Why the closet in the bathroom (if I understand this right)?

Apple_pie_order - ok I uploaded more pics labeled a little clearer. The tape has writing on it in the original pic but realizing now you can’t really see that in the picture.

Mcarrol16 - yes, so we definitely want this to be to code and will be pulling permits, I think code needs 21” clearance in front of the toilet. With our current layout it’s only 19”. So thats why we wanted to come on here and see if anyone had any layout suggestions to make this work better (and to code). The only option we could think of is trying to find a smaller 25-26 inch projection toilet instead of the 28” that we have currently in the layout to save a couple inches. And yes lol totally get wanting to keep as much clearance as possible. Our upstairs bathroom (and only other bathroom) sounds similar to yours and has only 16” between the toilet and the shower lol. It was built in 1935 and is extremely small. 🥴😂

Rebasheba - we wanted a linen closet for bathroom things, cleaning stuff and towels. We don’t have any other closet on the first floor for these things right now so wanted to make it functional(ish). I have some health things so it’s not feasible for me to run up and down the stairs to get towels and things when needed.

Your space is too small for what you want to do.

Have you considered a small bump out? It could probably cantilever out so you would not need a foundation, and might fit under the existing roof.

You can use an outswing door too.

Thanks for labels and uploaded images.

You could move the whole bathroom wall over a few inches which would also mean moving the door from dining room to bonus room. That would give you a much more comfortable space overall. Six or so inches more space would be much more appreciated in the bathroom than in the bonus room.

The linen closet could be a few inches shallower (say 14" instead of 18") to give you more room, too. Or it could be even shallower (10-12" inside depth) to fit towels folded in thirds sideways instead of the usual nearly square way. Then you could have more room for vanity and toilet, side by side.

Another option is to reverse the proposed bathroom door swing to "out" instead of "in", though an open bathroom door could interfere with traffic into the room more than you'd like.

That is a lot of storage though. Like, double what I have for our family bathroom, shared by 4. For our downstairs bath, I'm able to store basic cleaning plus hand towels, washcloths, and grooming supplies on a set of small shelves. If I had an actual cabinet above the toilet I could have spare bath towels too. If this is going to be your actual main bath, for the health reasons you mention, maybe it makes sense.

If you are willing to shrink the storage and use an outswing door, you could do something like this. (Toilet is projecting extra inches to allow for a false wall for plumbing, since that's an exterior wall.)

Thanks for the ideas. Definitely have some good ideas to consider.

PPF - yeah we’re realizing how tight the space really is. We are actually (hopefully) bumping out the current bonus room on the opposite side of this space (which will make the full wall the 209” as in the sketch). I don’t know that we could afford an additional bump out where the bathroom is, but maybe that’s something we get quoted to see what there thoughts are. We did consider just putting the full bath it in the bump out we’re already going to create however it would block most of the yard/flow to the yard and basically be on the deck so we ruled that out.

apple_pie_order - yeah moving the dining room door over may be a possibility. Although the dining room walls/ceiling are new lol so we were hesitant to touch is as that wall to the dining area is still plaster lol. Buttt that may be a good solution. We could definitely go smaller with the linen closet too. And yeah we were trying to stay away from an outswing door due to the layout of the dining room/bonus room but might have to consider it.

Mccarrol16 - yes you’re totally right I think we were over zealous with the closet space lol (got excited for storage). I think that layout could work well, and still give us some storage and more wiggle room around the toilet area and even shower. I think I’ll tape that option out/sketch it out with the dimensions and see how it feels in the space. Thanks!

Consider a corner toilet (Home Depot, Wayfair, etc). You could then get 2'9" in front. Move it to the exterior wall (away from the wall adjacent to dining room--yuck!!! Never a good scenario.). You could still have smaller, higher

windows installed in existing openings to give the room some natural light and ventilation. You could use a 33-inch wide by 12-inch cabinet with cantilevered vanity sink between two 18-inch wide by 12-inch deep linen cabinets or shelves. Door directly across from the sink will allow for an inch or two extra clearance by nature of the door inset from frame, and the sink and cabinetry would be the view if the door was left open to the bonus room.

Moore4 - thank you, I love the look and function of that layout. I didn’t know corner toilets were a thing until now - also definitely agree getting that toilet as far away as possible from the dining room. Thanks again, appreciate it!

Plumbing in an exterior wall can be an issue location dependent. Most people do their best to keep it out of the exterior walls regardless.

In general, scrambling to find a "shorter" toilet to allow comfortable width is emblematic of larger issues, and those very same issues leads to other problematic things. So maybe consider/answer items that may lead to more opportunity for a better outcome:

- A to-scale drawing, correctly shown as existing

- Proper dimensions (dimensions don't add up, stated is different than shown on drawing)

- Unskewed pics (e.g the glass door into this addition looks like a double french door in one pic but single in another, or the 118" where the fireplace is going looks like 50" in a pic).

- Why a double wall? If you insulate a standard 2x4 wall, that is typically enough sound attenuation. Most of the sound from bathrooms is flanking sound, meaning it will come through gaps around and under the door, with a hard floor surface to exacerbate that phenomenon. In your case even through a glass window and around to the other window in the seating area.

- Is there a bedroom on the first floor that you need a shower for?

- Is a bathroom that opens directly to a seating area, off the Dining, an appropriate location? Is this the only circulation to the outdoors past a future fireplace?

- Why is the bathroom door 32", either 28"/30" or go to 36"

- You will need to move a radiator. That in itself is a big job, and where will it go, to the seating changing your couch location/size? Will you heat the bathroom if it remains large?

Millworkman:

• yeah we don’t love it but floor plan/space wise we were having a hard time avoiding it. Definitely got some ideas here, and will keep working on options. Luckily we can do it in our location, as we have had to do it before for a laundry room. Although we do know it would not be fun to fix if something needed/needs repair.

3onthetree:

• Thanks, yeah definitely need to think about the options to try to avoid these problems. We are just getting to this room and starting to map it out
• I think the disconnect (not fully but partly) is the current real life pictures show the current set up. The sketch is what it will be after a small extension, so that’s why the fireplace wall looks smaller in the pic than the sketch. We have a single door right now as shown in the pic but we are changing it to a sliding door. Yes we need to do a more scaled drawing.
• The double wall is more needed for plumbing if we place it on an exterior wall. But we are concerned about noise but that’s not necessarily at play with the double wall decision.
• No there is no bedroom on the first floor. I have some health things and it would be better to have access to a shower on the first floor if needed. We are putting a pullout sofa in the bonus room.
• And no I honestly do not like the location of the bathroom at all. There use to be a 1/2 bath in this same space just on the opposite wall however it was beyond tight. We talked to a previous contractor and this bonus room is really the only doable place to put a bath based on the rest of the floor plan. But yeah I don’t like the idea of it being next to the dining room and in the bonus room but it still will be better than what it was I guess.
• We just based the door size off the other door going into the dining room - I can look that up and change it to the sizes you mentioned.
• Yeah we do need to move that or get rid of the radiators. We have done it before. We are discussing ideas for that now too, considering a mini split or changing to baseboards or a smaller radiator. Not sure yet. We are still very much in the planning phase, but all things that need to be decided.

Use software to create an as-built of the entire first floor. Then, create a separate drawing of the proposed addition on existing, including any schemes of the bathroom you have.

A double exterior wall is not necessary. The side of shower has no plumbing, and the mixing valve wall should be placed for future access on the interior. Water supply pipes for the vanity/toilet and waste pipe for the vanity can be routed in the floor rather than wall. But it is not unheard of to run those in an exterior wall. The tape looked like the interior wall was double too.

Ok thank you for all that info, I appreciate it. I’ll start with the as-built layout and then go from there as you suggested.