What depth are you allowing for the bath, the shower door also needs to swing the other way

Bath is 1600x750. Yes I will change the shower door, was just having trouble with the design programme I used! The door on the shower could be at the right hand end too. And a heated towel rail on the wall between the bath and shower possibly. Or a single rail and the heated one at the end of the bath.

are there any other toilets in the house and can you post plans of existing space including adjoining rooms and shower door can open so that you can reach a towel without stepping out or step out to reach the towels

Yes, our laundry which is to the left of the bathroom has a toilet and vanity. Our hot water cylinder was in the laundry too (which leaked), but this will be removed when we renovate as we have switched to the Rinnai gas infinity system. The laundry room is 3.22cm (L) x 1.92cm (w). We then have a hallway space to the left of that which is 1.06cm wide, which goes to the back door (currently used as a bit of a dumping ground!!). The back door has a porch area so it sits around a metre in from the back wall of the laundry (if that makes sense). We expect to remove the wall between the laundry and hallway so we can incorporate the hallway space into the laundry (as we will have moved the bathroom/laundry wall over). This would mean the back door is now into the laundry. I need to check with my builder but ideally we may also move our back door out as well, even if just half a metre to a metre, depending on how it affects our back steps and porch. photos of laundry and back part of happy attached (excuse the mess!).

For the laundry I would ideally like a long bench with dryer and washer underneath, 1800 long. Keep the toilet and a small basin will be fine (we have a 750mm in there now but we can go much smaller to a basin). Then we also need to have storage as this room is where we hang coats and shoes etc.

The rectangle top left is if we move the door back about 66cm from current position. The rectangle bottom left is the 1800x620 bench top/laundry area. Cupboards and hanging space above, appliances underneath and a sink on the end. If we have space I would add a small tall cupboard to the end of this bench/laundry area for ironing board etc. Rectangle on the right hand side is to show where coats/shoe storage could go.

can you post current house plans with dimensions...hand drawn sketch is ok and doesn't need to be correct scale just include approx dimensions of length time width of each room and location of any sink, toilet etc

makes sense now but i forgot to ask what are the external walls and inside floors made out of as this will make a big difference to available location of new back door...and is this the approximate existing layout?

hi, the external walls are plywood and the underfloor is chipboard, with tiles on top in bathroom and laundry, which will all be pulled up and replaced anyway as they are water damaged.. Yes that is approximate existing layout, with just two steps down to the path off the from the porch (concrete). I was thinking the backdoor stays in position just moves further back to almost meet up with the external walls of laundry/kitchen. or right back to line up exactly, with our builder to advise and redo the steps outside (they are cracked etc anyway). My main concern is whether the bathroom layout is good, and if I have given enough space to it - while covering everything on the Wishlist! - sep shower and bath, 1500 vanity and then in the laundry ideally an 1800mm long run fir the laundry plus keeping the extra toilet and some storage/coat rack as we do now. Can never have enough storage! thank-you

I guess the other option with the back door is to move it in the existing porch but at a right angle to where it is now. I did try this but had trouble fitting everything in and not having a toilet either visible from the internal door or the back door. I think this gave less storage space too, but could maybe work?

Like this moving back door out. You get a bit of privacy for extra toilet. You need 800 for toilet space width. So you could move the door in further and reduce laundry bench.

But this would be less work, putting shower in the old cupboard and allow you to put an internal door on laundry for privacy to toilet,

And in last could rotate toilet in laundry to in line with bench

As

Thank-you. I had wondered if I could try to use that storage space rather than move the whole wall, but had not considered moving the entry door to the laundry. definitely an interesting option. My only concern with this would be that we don't have enough storage for jackets/shoes etc. Do you think it works with the shower behind the door into the bathroom - or is it set back enough that it's not a problem? We will be pulling all our wallboard off anyway as they are covered 3/4 of the way up the wall with a terrible tiling job so I think is a good time to move walls if we need to.

Maybe this is an alternative option for my builder to consider depending on costs.

This was my original plan - very roughly...Re-hinge laundry door on the opposite side and storage behind the door. But I guess there is a lot of things being moved in this plan. I also really want to make sure we have the best design for the space, and would rather spend a more to get it right. Thanks everyone for your input so far..

Your plan is a lot more work, but doesn’t get more storage or privacy to toilet, noting the two doors.
With my layout you could shorten the shower from a walk in 1800 to say 1200 deep with a door and add storage of the rear hall at the back of shower. I always love more storage and would do that myself.

Hall cupboard

Great solution. This is definitely looking like a good cost effective alternative to my original plan. I could maybe put a cavity slider door into the laundry to save space too.

A couple of different suggestions to add to Kate, You mentioned needing to take up the flooring due to water damage so accessing plumbing will be easy to make changes.

I have moved the external door out to make use of precious space, I think you have already mentioned your builder is building a new Deck?

Wow, thank you so much! These are great suggestions to consider. Yes the floors are being pulled up in the bathroom and laundry because of the water damage, plus we will be pulling off all the walls because we need to remove all the wall tiles in both rooms too. So I feel like the plumbing thing is not so much of an issue. Our builder would look at the porch/steps area at the back door, as our steps and porch area are cracked so needs to be re-done anyway. So yes could move the external door if this is the best use of space. Really I just want to make sure we are making the best use of space & layout for the available space we have.

Good luck, there are lots of options and you have the space for all your elements. So in working out your design, I would make sure Privacy for the extra toilet, and then little things like towel rails, toilet roll holders and not to mention perhaps bigger items of windows must not be forgotten that we have not shown.
Please let us know where you end up.

If you study the floorplans you will know where to place fittings, like towels next to baths and showers and hand towels in other situations and importantly no toilet rolls next to the bath.., nothing worse than soggy toilet paper.

If you need any help with this I'am happy to help, showing small floorplans I prefer not to add these details so as not to clutter things too much, Also consider which way you swing your doors for privacy to work with the other rooms.

And don't over look how useful hooks are, a hook to hang your towel so you can easily reach it when you have finished showering and standing within the shower to dry off and not throw water all over the floor. I also like to try and keep showers and baths away from the entry door to avoid getting any water onto the floor in that area.

Yes siriuskey, absolutely re-hooks, towels etc. From your design suggestions I think the second one is more likely to work for us, as we have a young family the first one which looks like a wet area design with the shower & bath won't really work for us unfortunately! I also agree with you, I like to keep the shower and bath away from the entry door. Do you have any recommendations with what to do with the laundry/powder room area if we kept the bathroom as my original suggested design?. Also with the laundry I am really hoping I can fit in an 1800mm long bench (minimum), and I really want to make sure we have space for a coat hook rack/storage plus keeping the extra toilet we already have. Thanks so much for your help, its really helping me think of some different ideas.

Again, consider your priorities. They’re will be other options and you have to live with it not us. Don’t get too stressed it will be better than exisiting.

I will post a couple more floorplans to explain things more clearly and showing what you have drawn, but it will have to wait until tomorrow, family needs me

Haha anything will be better than existing!!! We are very lucky to be able to do this renovation. Thank you for all your helps so far.

The following shows how you had your shower and bath drawn, I have swapped the bath to the R/H so as not to have the window in the shower.

My suggestion of having the shower butt up to the bath either vertically or horizontally saves a lot of space, as shown you can see how having the shower separate eats into the space for your laundry for WC, coat storage , broom cupboard and long benchtop. Also by doing that and not moving the rear door out creates a small difficult 900 space.

So you can decide to push the shower into the laundry or not and pushing the rear door out or not to over come that 900 space

To allow for your 1500 double vanity I have shown a Nib wall (100) between it and the bath this can be tiled full height or up to hip height with glass above, or reduce the vanity to 1200 to allow for a glass screen and space between to clean or place a rubbish bin.

So I will work with the door being pushed back and make a further suggestion. Any confirmation to changes would greatly help. What will the actual size of the external door be cheers

Thank-you. I like how you have fit the broom cupboard into the space, as I was feeling like I had a lot of space for the toilet in the bathroom and was not sure what to do about that! Yes, that 900 space in laundry is tricky, which is why I am thinking about moving the door. Our external back door is currently 84cm wide not including the door frame.

Thanks for the door size, the following is a 3D view of all 3 options so far, so back to the drawing board. working with what we now have, any more input thoughts you might have apart from double vanity 1200-1500, long laundry bench, Coat storage, Brooms and second WC. What aspect does the current rear door have

Our rear door just goes out to our side path on the blind side of the house, beside the path is a hedge running the whole way down on our neighbours boundary, so nothing spectacular! Our views are out the other side of the house. I can't think of any other must have's at the moment, just really want to make sure we have a decent size shower so was thinking around 1200x900, to allow space to shower two children at once or an adult & child as we live by the beach so often need to get rid of sand! I also wanted to make sure there was space around the bath - again for easy bathing of little ones. A back to the wall bath is fine, maybe something like the attached which comes in different configurations (ie it doesn't have to be a full freestanding one or anything), but that is getting into the actual fittings when I really just want to make sure the spaces are right then everything else will flow. Current double vanity is 1200 so really hoping we can squeeze in a 1500.

sounds like you need an outdoor shower to get rid of sand and quite easy to do with handheld shower hose added through the wall

Sorry Aspect meaning facing which way. North or other. Lucky you to live near the beach as I do, we have an outdoor shower which everyone loves to use

So the side that the bathroom/laundry is on is north, the living areas face south to the sea. Yes totally agree about the outdoor shower, I would love to put a proper one in. I expect we will set up the plumbing for it when we have all the walls off. It would be outside the back door obviously where bathroom/laundry is etc.

what if the external back door was moved at right angles - ie it opened into the 900mm space, so you would come into the porch and the door is on the left instead of straight ahead. I'm not sure if this is possible or is this is useful to the laundry/powder room space. Or what this means from a building perspective.

Does that door have a Westerly aspect, which would mean that it would be ideal to keep it stepped back, Other wise I could see that space contributing to the laundry

Door faces north currently. Yes ideally move the doorway outwards to gain the space for the laundry

So, I' e been having a think about each of the three designs and what I like about each and thought I'd give some feedback to see if you have any more thoughts because you have been so helpful.

I think my favourite one is the third one, with swapping the bath/shower over and being able to get storage into the hallway. But I am really unsure what to do with the laundry, I can't see any option to make it work without moving the external door. I also wondered if I made the sower 1200, then the toilet could be closer to the shower and then this makes even more space for the storage with could even be in the laundry like a coat/shoe area OR would it be large enough to put a wall hung toilet in there with small wall hand basin. I don't know if that might feel like the toilet is in a tiny box :) But I do love how we have managed to gain some extra space from the bathroom in that design.

I also really like this second option particularly the laundry layout and extra toilet space (as it has a window in the toilet area). But I am still unsure about the shower next to bath and wonder if it would work to swap the shower with the toilet in that space? I'm just concerned about a shower next to the entry door though and if it makes it a bit tight with toilet next to bath for bathing kids etc. But I do love the space in the laundry and extra toilet room.

And then this last one I think the bathroom layout could work really well but I am not overly keen on the powder room with door tot he hallway because there would be no window in that room, so I'm wondering how to shuffle that laundry/powder room space to fit with that bathroom layout.

Opt 3 is my pick. I have internal powder room with skylight and exhaust fan. No Issues in 10 years

Is Duncan now Helen? brings to mind a saying "behind every successful man is a good woman pushing him" or something like that