Of Mice and Men

Because we decided to do this properly, or rather legally, we had to have plans drawn up for the permit office at city hall. Mr. Remodel drew up the upstairs bath plan on some squared paper, as it was pretty simple. We were keeping all the fixtures in the same location to save money and because the room is too small to re-arrange them in any other way that made sense.
Instead of the one-piece bath and shower unit that was in there, Mr. Remodel wanted a claw foot tub made by American Bath Factory that had an air system which blows air from small holes in the floor of the tub rather than jets of water from holes along the side.



Mr. Inspector wanted some documentation on it before the office would approve the plans because he’d never come across a tub like this before. Unlike jet tubs where the pump is totally enclosed with an access panel, the air system has a free-standing unit that looks like a little pig and stands under the tub attached via a hose, Mr. Inspector was concerned that no one got electrocuted should they leaned out of the bath and touch the unit so he wanted to get some safety information to ensure that it had all been tested. ABF couldn’t understand what was wanted and said they didn’t have any documentation. Could they contact their factory in China where the pig is made? Apparently not but they would give us the e-mail address of their man in China so we could ask him. Given the time difference, Mr. Their Man in China got back to us very quickly with the safety certification that made Mr. Inspector a happy man and got our permit accepted.

The downstairs plan needed a more professional presentation because it was more extensive and involved moving walls. So we enlisted the services of a friend, who lives locally, in the interior design business who draughts plans among other things.
For downstairs our plan was to completely gut the kitchen and put in all new cabinets in a new configuration, while keeping the location of the plumbing and one of the gas lines where they were (again to save money). In addition we were going to make some major changes to the downstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, the bathroom downstairs was both the bathroom for the adjoining master bedroom and for guests who could access the room via a door off of a small hallway off the living room.



This shows the entry into the hallway. The door you can see is the one guests use to go into the bathroom. To the right is a small closet; to the left is where you walk further along to the master bedroom.

Since there is just the two of us, and that is who is going to be in the house 99% of the time and since the second bathroom is right at the top of the stairs, the hallway seems, to us, to be a waste of space. So we proposed closing up the doorway to the hall and opening one further along the wall to make a shorter entry into the bedroom. Part of the closet in the hall and part of the hallway itself would be made into a closet for the room on the other side of the bathroom, which didn’t have one. The guest door to the bathroom and its adjoining walls would be taken down and refigured into a slightly larger shower, and a newly created walk-in closet in the bathroom.
The original closets, one on either side, where passed by when entering the bathroom from the bedroom. Both would be shortened. The one on your left on the plan below would remain a clothes closet. The one on the right would be significantly shortened to become a linen closet allowing a second sink to be put in.



Apart from adding a second sink, which feeds off of the plumbing from the original sink, again, all the plumbing remained in the same place saving both time and money. Yet, despite this, you will see that we have effective a radical change in both bathrooms and kitchen from what is there now.
The black lines represent new walls.