Master Bed and Bath Decisions

This is the original drawing.  There is more vanity and shower space than we need, but less linen closet space.  And there's no place to hang towels!  (Even in the new house, we intend to keep up our regular shower routines, so it'd be very useful to have a place to put the drying-off supplies!)

There's no good way to have the door to the bathroom swing--it either interferes with the sink area or it bangs into the shower door.  Ooops.

Two closets option

One option is to make two closets out of the new space--one opening into the bath and one opening in the hall area.  There is extra room in the sink area now--that gap is the result of enlarging the bath area and shrinking the master bedroom.

This doesn't add any hanging space for the towels, though and the doors don't co-exist well.

The space would be more usable and would create towel hanging space if the closet area opened into the bedroom, but that would make the wall into a collection of doors--which wouldn't be attractive at all!

(In the spirit of doors, it's missing the one to the closet.  I promise it'll return before the final framing diagrams are complete!)

(Clicking on the image will make it full-size so you can see the details)

Built-in Option

I'm leaning towards this solution.  It takes the space and creates a built-in that faces into the bedroom.

It has a couple of pluses--one is that it creates the storage space for sheets within the built-in itself.  Because it adds space to the vanity area, we can add an 18" cabinet (and still have a 6'6" countertop).  The new cabinet can hold towels and extra toiletries.

It also simplifies the door issue, since the swining door non longer interferes with someone standing at the sink or getting into the shower.

The shower is still 4'x6', which is what we wanted all along.

Built-in Option (continued)

Here is what the built-in would (basically) look like.   It would allow for sheets to be stored in the drawer (or cabinet) area and then decorative space above.  I'm not sure if it'll be drawers or cabinets and I'm not sure about the material or the double drawer concept yet.   (I bet Stan votes for real wood, probably a light cherry.)

I do like it, though.

(I can't decorate the shelves very well using this software, but it shows the general idea of that being a visual focal point.)

Can we afford to shrink the master bedroom?

After taking out a foot of space, there's still room for a king sized bed, two night stands, two dressers, a chair and a table.  I think it still works.