Last week, Kevin took the proactive step to bring the bathroom designer, Angelo, into the process. The architect had done preliminary bathroom planimetrie (floorplans), but we need to finalize the layouts so the plumbing work can proceed. (The toilet placement is the issue that needs to be decided now,. The others can be tweaked later, though as you’ll see I think we’ve got it solved now.)
The preliminary layouts we had received before seemed to be reasonable, but I think the bathroom “specialist” made some great improvements, particularly in the placement of the showers and toilets and figuring out how to incorporate the nicchie.
The general recommendation about the nicchia was presented by Kevin as, “Nicchia is accommodated with a “faux” wall extension, seamless to ceiling.”
My question back to him on this was whether this would take too much space from the rooms, but it doesn’t look like it would from the drawings (below).
I’ll cover the individual bathroom. in turn.
Master bathroom
Here is the original design compared with the new layout from the specialist.
Kevin presented the rationale like this:
(Kevin loves using capitals for emphasis and an ellipsis to join thoughts.)
• You enter the bathroom, and immediate have access to the double sinks … also, upon entering you profit from the natural light from the window
• The entire exterior wall is COMPLETELY “FREE”…
• The bathroom is very spacious with lots of free room
• Inside the shower area we can “extend” the nicchia wall extension to create an in-shower NICCHIA or an in-shower SHELF…or we can do nothing
The shower is a generous 1.8m x 0.9m (6 ft x 3 ft).
The only small detail, which is no problem to change is that Anne and I think we probably want a single sink rather than double so we have more counter space.
Ground Floor Bathroom
This bathroom runs across the front side of the house, to the right of the entry.
Kevin’s comments:
• You enter the bathroom, see the glass shower panel, then the sink … the toilet is tucked in the back, out of view when you first enter
• The entire right side wall is “free”, no clutter
• He puts the shower in the wall indentation … allows for a bigger, cleaner shower with glass panel, no cabinet … easier to clean, nicer to look at, more comfortable to use
Here. I want to tinker more.
My biggest concern is with the way the door opens. As drawn, there is no place for wall switches, except behind the door or in the hall, neither of which I like. I want to reverse the swing, so it opens on the right. This requires the shower opening to be put at the other end, so it’s not behind the door.
Again, the shower is a good size, at 1.4m x 0.6 m (4½ ft x 2 ft).
The other tweak is to put a half wall between the sink and the toilet.
Top Floor Bathroom
Here, we told them we didn’t want the bidet and he has the great idea of how to use the space: add a shower along with the tub. (We want to tub for guests with little children (grandchildren?))
Kevin:
• He recommends going with BOTH a tub and a shower – his reasoning is that by eliminating the bidet, we pick up some space … the vast majority of usage will be shower over tub … also, from a cleaning point of view, the shower will keep the bathroom cleaner, contain more water splashes, etc., than will a shower in the tub … he cites the fact that you might rent the house as another motivator for the cleaning/usage rationale
• You enter the bathroom and have immediate access to the sink … the toilet is tucked in the back, out of view when you first enter
Our only comments are that we’d like that half wall here, also. (There may be a slight issue with the door placement, given the special door we’d like to use for the adjacent linen closet.)
We sent our comments and questions off to Kevin.
Update
After hearing the recommendations from Angelo and Kevin, we decided to drop the half wall idea, as the spaces are somewhat small and it would chop them up unnecessarily.
We did make the small revision to switch the master sink from double to single.
My biggest concern was to redo the way the door opens in the ground floor bath. They were able to deliver what I wanted, as shown in the plan below. (I have rotated the previous revision image so they can be seen side-by-side in the same orientation.)
Bathroom Click image to enlarge
Source:
All images: Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure
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