Primary bathroom layouts that work

The sight line from the door

Stand in the doorway. What you see straight ahead is the room’s subject, and in most existing bathrooms it is a toilet.

The hierarchy that works, best first:

1. A window, if there is one and privacy allows.
2. A tub, particularly a freestanding one — it is the most sculptural object in the room.
3. A vanity with a mirror, which gives depth and light.
4. A tiled shower, if the tile is worth looking at.
5. The toilet. Last, always. Behind a partial wall, in its own compartment, or at minimum out of the direct line.

Moving a toilet is expensive. Screening one with a half wall, a knee wall with a shelf, or a shallow compartment is not. In a renovation where the budget is finite, screening is usually the better trade.

What clearances does a bathroom need?

The 21-inch figure in front of the toilet is the one most often violated in older houses, and the 30-inch clear floor in front of a vanity is the one that decides whether two people can use the room at once.

Zoning a primary bathroom

A primary bathroom has four zones, and a good plan keeps them from colliding:

• Wet zone — shower and tub. Group them if possible: one waterproofed area is cheaper and more flexible than two.
• Vanity zone — the busiest area in the morning, and where the light quality matters most.
• Toilet zone — screened, ideally with its own extraction and a door or partial wall.
• Dressing zone — the route to the closet, which should not pass through the wet zone.

The circulation test: two people should be able to use the vanity and reach the closet without either of them crossing the shower door swing. In older Park Cities houses this frequently requires taking space from an adjacent closet or bedroom — which is a better trade than accepting a bathroom that only one person can use at a time.

Showers, tubs and wet rooms

• A wet room puts the shower and tub in one waterproofed enclosure behind a single glass panel. It uses space efficiently, needs no shower door swing, and requires the whole area to be tanked properly.
• Curbless showers look better, are easier to clean and are far safer. They require the floor to be recessed or built up for drainage, which is a framing decision made at the start. See aging-in-place bathroom design.
• Bench or no bench. A bench is genuinely useful and eats 15 to 18 inches of shower depth. Decide before the shower size is fixed, not after.
• Niches are set out by the tile course, so the tile layout has to be decided before the niche is framed. A niche whose edges do not land on a grout line is the detail people notice for years.
• Two shower heads means a larger drain, more hot water and often a bigger valve. It is a plumbing decision, not a fixture selection.
• Freestanding tubs need floor-mounted or wall-mounted filler decided at rough-in, and they need room around them to clean.

Whether to keep a tub at all is covered in shower or tub. The short version: keep at least one tub in the house; it does not have to be in the primary bathroom.

One vanity or two?

Two sinks are the default request and are not always the right answer.

• Two sinks need at least 72 inches of vanity to work properly — 30 to 36 inches between centers, plus edge space. Below 60 inches, two sinks give you two cramped bowls and no counter.
• One sink plus a long counter is often more useful in a bathroom under 72 inches wide, and it is what people who have lived with a cramped double vanity say afterwards.
• Separate vanities on opposite walls solve the morning collision better than one long unit, where the plan allows.
• Drawers, not doors. A bathroom vanity with doors and a shelf is wasted volume; drawers with a cutout for the trap hold three times as much.
• Light beside the mirror, not only above it. Sconces at eye level light a face evenly; a downlight above the mirror puts shadows under the eyes. See the lighting design guide.

The order decisions have to be made in

1. Layout — fixture positions, door swings, sight line.
2. Fixtures selected — tub, toilet, shower valve, sinks. Their specifications drive the rough-in.
3. Rough-in — plumbing and electrical positions, blocking for grab bars and vanities, niche framing.
4. Waterproofing — the work you never see and the one that fails invisibly. See the bathroom remodel planning guide.
5. Tile layout — set out before setting, with the niche and the drain in the plan.
6. Cabinetry and stone.
7. Glass — measured after tile, so it is one of the last items and a common cause of a final-week delay.

Reversing steps one and two is what produces a bathroom where the freestanding tub filler comes out of the floor 4 inches from where the tub actually sits.

The smallest bathroom in the house follows completely different rules, and is the one guests actually experience alone — see the powder room guide.

Jan Revels

ASID Allied Professional Interior Designer · Chateau Concepts, Dallas

Jan has practiced interior design in Dallas since 1997 and founded Chateau Concepts in 2001. She holds a BFA in Interior Design from the University of North Texas. She designs and general-contracts residential and commercial projects across the Park Cities, Preston Hollow and North Dallas. Read her full profile →

Written and reviewed by Jan Revels before publication