It Would Seem, Mine’s Bigger Than I Thought

Well, isn’t my face red. Here I thought I was going to perform some engineering marvel by cramming a full bath into what I thought was a small space, and it seems a lot of you have already done that (or have had it done) in an even smaller space.



This little exercise in reality was not all for nothing, though. It proved that a full bath can easily exist in 63 sq ft or less. Well, OK, easily may be a bit of a stretch for some of you, but it can be done. That’s the important thing. Also, the fact that it can exist in less space is really important, because my bathroom is about to get smaller.

In the back corner of the room there is a chase that takes plumbing, electrical, and telecom to the second and third floors. I could box this in to space a of about a half of a square foot. The problem with that is, I would have a little box in the corner of the room. It would just look odd. My plan is to build a new wall 6-inches out from the existing wall to hide the chase and everything else. Basically, all plumbing for the bathroom, along with all plumbing, electrical, and telecom for the above floors will run in this little 6-inch wall space.

By doing this, I will be reducing the room by about 5 sq ft, but it will really make things much easier. First off, the toilet would have ended up being right over a joist. By adding this wall, it pushes the flange out past the joist. Second, the original wall space was a load baring wall for the second and third floor. I’m embarrassed to say that I already damaged the joist when I ran the new gas line and had to sister another one to it. This means I essentially have a 4X6 beam just under the wall that I was going to have to run all the drains and supply lines for the bathroom. It was just going to be a nightmare.

So, by building a new wall 6-inches in to the bathroom space, I won’t have the odd little box in the corner of the room, and I can simply come up through the sub floor for all supply and drain lines, and bypass the 4X6 beam. Thank you all for living with small bathrooms and making me feel secure in creating what may be considered a mid-sized bathroom.