You Can Make Your Bathroom Bigger

There are a lot of older homes in America that are wonderful, livable spaces, but they do show the design philosophies of their time. One example of this is bathroom sizes. Today, a desirable feature in many homes is a spacious, almost spa-like master or primary bathroom for the master bedroom. In the past, however, a bathroom was considered a space you wanted to spend as little time in as possible, so only the minimum functional space required was allotted. Greater preference was given to “living spaces,” such as bedrooms and living rooms. This doesn’t mean, however, that if you move into an older home you love, you’re stuck with the bathroom space you have. When you work with an experienced remodeling contractor, it may be possible to extend your bathroom if you’d like more space. But how?

Take Space From Another Area

Bathroom extension options depend greatly on the floor layout and what your remodeling contractor deems feasible with your budget. One possibility is taking space already occupied by something adjacent to the bathroom. For example, if the current bathroom also happens to be beside a room with a wall-to-wall closet, one possibility is “sacrifice” that closet for additional bathroom space.

Sometimes, there may not be a closet, just another bedroom, but some people are willing to tear down the wall, extend the bathroom by however many feet they want, and then build a new wall. This results in a smaller bedroom, but that may not be an issue if it’s used as a home office or even just storage space.

Take Up An Entire Room

In some cases, the better option, especially if a large family in residence is not an issue, is to sacrifice an entire room. If there’s a guest room or bedroom that is not currently being heavily used in some other capacity, like a home office or home theater, a complete, spacious, full-size bathroom can be built into that room instead.

This will necessitate some extra cost, connecting the new bathroom to the existing plumbing network of the home. However, it’s still a cheaper alternative to building an entirely new extension for the home, which can sometimes approach the cost of the entire house itself.

Reconfigure The Space With A Remodeling Contractor

Sometimes the issue is not that there is too little space; it is just badly utilized. You may have a situation where the total square footage of the current bathroom is sufficient for a premium bathroom experience; it’s just that the current layout doesn’t take advantage of this.

With this option, the existing bathroom is “dismantled, and while no walls need to be torn down and space expanded, it may require reconfiguring the arrangement of the plumbing as fixtures like toilet placement, bathtub, and shower stall location are all moved. With new fixtures in different positions and new countertops and sinks with different form factors, it’s possible to get much more efficiency and spaciousness out of an existing bathroom when the design is more judiciously approached.

If you’re planning to upgrade your bathroom and want to work with an experienced remodeling contractor, we can help. Contact us today.