Our son helped me learn this. He used it in his own place when trying to figure out what furniture to get and where it should go. It’s actually fun.
If you are changing the floor plan, I’d go old school. Get some graph paper…and draw in what you want…and where you want it.
I think this is why so many of us are encouraging you to look at magazines, catalogs, Pinterest, etc. to find pictures of bathrooms/fixtures/features you love to give your designer a place to start the conversation. You don’t have to use AI (although I bet you’ll be hooked if you try). Pictures will give the designer an idea of your style and what you’re looking to end up with so s/he can render possibilities for you. And don’t be afraid to choose pictures of bathrooms you think are way outside your budget; it’s the “look” you’re going for, and a good designer will get you there. You don’t have to have it all figured out, that’s what you pay the designer for.
Reno/decor is my wheelhouse, but I got started on this path the old-fashioned way. Remember Metropolitan Home magazine? I’ll never forget a monthly feature that I devoured in the 80s – the magazine showed on two facing pages two rooms that looked almost identical, but the left page was $$$$$ while the duplicate look was $$. The accompanying article described how to achieve a palace look on a cottage budget. For example, the expensive room had museum-quality art, accessories, fabric, etc. while the same colors, shapes, and patterns were executed on the opposite side with reasonably-priced substitutes. The vase on the mantle on the left was Ming, on the right, a flea-market find of similar shape and color. If you had never seen the left page, you’d still be wowed by the right.
That lesson has stayed with me. I don’t care about the cost of the pictures I choose because I know that I can usually duplicate what I like about them at reasonable cost. You can achieve a look without copying every detail. Whenever I want to re-do a room, I start with professional pictures of the look I want to achieve and back into it based on what I can afford and tweak to suit my taste.
+1000 to this.
If you have an existing house plan showing your bathroom as well as the space where you plan to expand, you can take a photo of it and make the changes on the plan with the photo editor. I use the Apple Pencil on my iPad Photos app which has enough tools to do this. I imagine Google Photos does too.
If no plan exists, as others have said using graph paper to map approximate dimensions is a great option. Walk around the bathroom, measure your steps to each part of it and then sketch it on the graph paper. One way to give a plan dimension is by extending vertical lines after tilting the sketch 45 deg on the x-axis and inputting the approximate heights of each part. Tracing paper would be useful to do this
You could also just take photos of the current bathroom from different angles and use the photo editor to remove things to visualize the space with the changes.
I do this all the time because I’ve become too lazy to put in the effort to draw measured drawings and I am not a fan of AI.
I have a Pinterest board and an album on my phone of inspiration photos. That is no problem.
Here’s an example. With our original contractor there was room for a storage cabinet next to the shower wall. A cabinet we needed to purchase. I’m like ok, we will find a cabinet - what width do we need? He did some measuring and said don’t exceed 24 inches. And don’t get it too tall because he will build it in. Ok….so I ask what height should I get? He said 7-7 1/2 ft max. Ok.
I start looking online. I realize I don’t know about depth - if the shower wall is 36inches wide (the short part of the shower) can we get to and open doors on a 24 inch cabinet? What if the shelf depth is narrow, say 18 inches - is that a problem??
There seem to be so many variables. No doubt I am not a “throw caution to the wind and hope it sticks” kind of person!
On a more fun note here are some of my inspiration photos:
Perfect, @abasket! This is where you start with a designer. All of those pictures adhere clearly to a style making it easy for a designer to render images that fit your room dimensions. You can tweak with this person from there, and s/he will solve the cabinet problem for you, too. What you and the designer come up with will enable a contractor to give you that detailed quote you’re looking for.
Reiterating what @ChoatieMom said. You have gathered enough ideas to work with a designer who will help bring your vision to completion.
Decision fatigue is real. We just finished a 3-yr whole house renovation last year. We had 4+ bathrooms, a redesigned kitchen, a new floor addition, and were faced with a host of decisions. The process seemed endless.
We were working with an architect but I was the interior designer for the whole project. I had spreadsheets for everything, paint colors, tile colors, bathroom hardware, plumbing fixtures, cabinet colors and also had samples of everything. DH leaves design decisions completely to me so the responsibility weighed heavily. Did I make mistakes? You betcha! But ultimately we have a house that we love and everyone who has seen it has liked.
All this to say that a good designer will take a lot of weight and responsibility off your shoulders. In our area, there are bathroom remodeling firms that only focus on bathrooms. They will give you 3-d designs of the space they are re-designing. Perhaps similar firms exist in your area? We had someone come out to measure the space and then a no-commitment appointment at their office to see the design.
Your Pinterest board is lovely!
I agree with hiring a designer/planner or going to a kitchen/bathroom shop that has designers, products and installers. It is worth the $, in my opinion to get things just the way you want it.
When we recently remodeled our kitchen I hired a kitchen designer as I was adding in cabinets and a dry bar although keeping the same footprint for the most part.
Your last set of pictures with the darker tile looks just like my brother’s bathroom that he remodeled last year. It looks stunning in person! He installed a teak ceiling in the shower that is stunning.
Around here if you are moving anything including a door you need an architect’s plan. I have probably drawn hundreds of bathrooms for clients. (Well maybe dozens…) Here the most common arrangement is for the architect to provide a plan which will include the layout and drawings of all four walls, plus any notes both about following the building code or anything special, like extra insulation, extra construction under a soaking tub, radiant heating or waterproofing systems in the floors, sound insulation in walls etc. Then you use the drawings to get a couple of contractor bids unless you already have a favorite and don’t care if they cost a little more, choose one and they will give you a construction cost which doesn’t usually include any appliances or fixtures, tile or trim. It generally costs about the same to install an $400 faucet or a $20 faucet. For some things you can ask the contractor to buy the items and they’ll get the contractor price.
@abasket - I agree clients might not know enough about plumbing, construction, human factors etc to know if a pictured layout could work. But maybe you could sketch up on graph paper what you have in mind, see what feedback you get from potential contractors.
In a space that tight, the single sink with more counter usually ends up being more practical day to day. The led mirror idea is a good call too they throw a lot more light than people expect and help with shadows.
If you’re already down to studs, another thing that can really help is using a wall hung vanity or a slightly shallower one. It opens the floor visually and gives a little more elbow room without changing the layout much.
For the shower on the back wall idea, are you planning to run a full glass panel/door across it or something more like a walk-in style with a fixed panel? That choice can make a big difference in how open the room ends up feeling.
In a space that tight, the single sink with more counter usually ends up being more practical day to day. The LED mirror idea is a good call too—they throw a lot more light than people expect and help with shadows.
If you’re already down to studs, another thing that can really help is using a wall-hung vanity or a slightly shallower one. It opens the floor visually and gives a little more elbow room without changing the layout much.
For the shower on the back wall idea, are you planning to run a full glass panel/door across it or something more like a walk-in style with a fixed panel? That choice can make a big difference in how open the room ends up feeling.
We had an 18” vanity and a 24” wide bathroom closet. We took the closet out and put in a 48” vanity. We searched for a vanity with LOTS of storage space in it. We were able to stow away much of what was in the closet into the vanity, rest went into a hall closet outside the bathroom.
It was amazing how much space in some vanities is wasted.
What height sink/vanity are folks picking? If we ever renovate the bathroom adjoining our bedroom, we will definitely make our higher. My 6’2” husband has never enjoyed hunching over to shave etc
Ours is so low right now. Like 31 inches. I think when I looked it up standard seems to be like 35-36?
Our vanities are standard kitchen cabinet height, so ~36”. So much better then the extremely low ones I grew up with.
When we redid our bathroom we had “comfort height” cabinets put in - I’m not sure of the height, but close to kitchen counter height.
Everything is the higher vanities now, but being only 5’2”, I hate the higher vanities at hotels. I feel like I can’t lean over the sink enough and everything splashes all over the place. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. Maybe if we go with a shorter depth it will help.
This is my problem too! In our last house, we had room to do separate vanities and mine was standard height and my H (6’4) had his taller. In this current house we didn’t have the space so we split the difference.
Due to the thickness of the granite, all of our counters (kitchen/island/bathrooms) are 37” high, exactly the height of my bent elbows, no leaning, which works well for rolling dough and general food prep. DH appreciates that the counters are well-suited to his height, too. Designers say that lower counters are better for knife control, but I don’t find that to be true (the cabin counters are lower, but we don’t work that kitchen the way we do the AZ kitchen).
If we ever put in a kitchen again (unlikely) I will make one area of counter a couple inches lower for more bread-kneading leverage. Currently, since DH and I and our boys are all above-average height, we put the cabinets at ceiling height and moved things up proportionately. I don’t know the measurements but our counters feel “high” and that’s generally good except for the bread as mentioned. In the bathroom, I feel like they’re a bit lower, which is funny; I never thought about that.
