We are diving into our master bathroom remodel and want to be completely transparent and share all the details as we go for a few reasons; first, a bunch of you have reached out saying that you’re tackling a remodel, too, and are looking to us for some guidance. Second, it’s actually a very overwhelming project for us and whenever we feel overwhelmed by the scope of a project, it always helps to take it in chunks and check it off as we go. Also it helps to just say we’re overwhelmed. Already feel better.
So instead of saying, “In two months, we’re going to have our whole bathroom done” which is both exciting and also exhausting. We’re saying, “this week we’re going to tackle planning!.” Or demo. Or tile. Or plumbing, etc. It really helps to break it into smaller chunks, while still having an overall plan in place. DIYing with three little kids, man. Whew!
On that note–the plan. We have flip-flopped, looked at a thousand different bathroom photos for inspiration, measured thrice and are pretty sure we landed on the best layout for our master bathroom.
First, let’s show you what we currently are living with and which parts are not ideal. Here’s our current layout:
As soon as you enter our bathroom, there’s a big tub (that mostly collects dust now that there is a tub in the girls’ bathroom), a tiny shower, but perhaps the biggest pain point is the toilet closet. It’s across from the single sink vanity (oh my goodness–I can’t wait for double sinks!!) and slightly angled but really congests the walkway into our master closet. Which is also filled with weird angles thanks to the toilet closet jutting into it. Can’t wait to box that area out and maximize it!
So here’s our tentative layout and a few very early before photos.
1. We’d like to move narrow the doorway into the bathroom a little bit, and get rid of the weird angled archway and add a pocket door leading into the master bathroom. After not having a bathroom door for four years, you’d think that I’d be okay without one now–but it’s the opposite. Every single day I wish we had one, but especially when we have people come over unexpectedly and I am getting out of the shower and one of our girls has come in to look for me and left our bedroom door open on the way out. (Can you tell this happens a lot!?) And although I am tucked into the bathroom–I still feel super exposed. I can’t wait to have a door!
2. We’re nixing the tub completely and moving the toilet closet to the immediate right when you walk into the bathroom. It’ll be more out of the way.
3. This will make room for a large, glass enclosed steam shower with multiple heads. A luxe shower. Built in bench–the works. We’re also going to add a window here to bring some natural light into the room–finally!
4. A 72″ double sink vanity will float in between the shower and closet. We’ve gone back and forth with this decision, from making it wall to wall or floating–but wall to wall meant building a wall into the glass shower surround and every picture I saw of that–I just didn’t love it.
Fig. 1. This illustrates that half wall I often see separating vanities from glass enclosed showers. While I am not a fan of that, this layout (down to the hooks between the shower and toilet closet) are pretty closet to our future layout.
Fig. 2. I’d rather have the vanity floating in the center of the space (not necessarily floating on the wall) so that the glass enclosure can extend to the floor.
5. With the toilet closet gone, we’ll be able to square off and maximize the master closet. We’ll be tackling this as a separate project but since it effects the layout of the bathroom, I wanted to include it here.
6. Finally, a small built-in linen closet for towels and we’d love to find a way to incorporate built-in, concealed laundry baskets there, too!
So now that the layout feels right, we have started to pick finishes–which is probably where a lot of my anxiety is coming from right now. It’s so fun but I also want to pick them all. Ha! I am waiting to find that one piece that I have to have and build around that. We hope to get everything ordered this month and then we’ll definitely share a mood board with you! Can’t wait!
Can you give the dimensions of the shower?
The new shower was 48 inches by 60 inches.
Hello, I just found your blog and love it! Your bathroom is so gorgeous, and has inspired me to finally (gulp) actually take on a master bath remodel. I have a similar layout and have been wondering about the plumbing issue of swapping the toilet to the drain of the shower/bathtub. Was that a large headache or did you have to run new plumbing?
any help is greatly appreciated!
We kept the toilet in the same spot for this reason. Toilets are hard to move but not impossible!
Hi Julia, great post! This all looks amazing and I’m excited to follow along and see what you end up doing with the space. Your design will make the space so much more practical – well done! Thanks for sharing this awesome article!
can you do those cute windows in Fig 1?
Will you be using IKEA cabinets to do your bathroom? If so, I’d be super interested to see the process!