Tiny en-suite of it worth it?

[Lavendersquare]

We are currently renovating our house, and the plumber working on our main bathroom, mentioned that it would be really easy to add a small ensuite bathroom to the main bedroom. However, when we’ve explored this in more detail the maximum size of the finished room would be 1.5 m x 1.5 m.

I’ve drawn a scale drawing (1 square = 10cm) and can fit a compact toilet a 800 mm quadrant shower cubicle and a smallish vanity sink but I’m not sure whether it’s going be so small as to be unusable.

What are your experiences of very small bathrooms? Are they actually worth it? We are a family of 5, with two adult children at home and a teenager so another shower would be a real bonus. There is a window and the remaining bedroom would be 4.3m by 3.5m so plenty of room as wardrobes are already fitted to another wall.

Before anyone asks, the shower room cannot be any bigger 1.5m x 1.5m maximum.

I’ve attached a plan that shows my working out.

We have a good size en suite to our bedroom with a big shower and his n hers sinks etc.

We have added 2 very small ensuites (The size of 3 square shower trays in a row) to both of my DCs bedrooms.

Shower 1 end, door (opening into the bedroom) in the middle with a thin sink from Ikea, then a toilet at the other end looking at the shower.

Its far more compact than yours, but perfect for my teenagers to have their own bathrooms in the morning.

We then have a large family bathroom, which we rarely use (unless we are having a bath) which is for the guests.

The house i grew up in originally had a single bathroom with a separate toilet. For years we planned to knock the wall through and combine them. With four people in the house, Mum wanted two toilets and as a teenager I longed for a cubicle shower so we continued with the original plan but also added a much smaller second bathroom next to my parents room. It really was tiny, the shower took up a the whole width of the room wall to wall then there was the toilet and the small sink. If you want to save space I have seen some toilets that actually have the sink built into the cistern on the back or alternatively my neighbours have a really tiny corner sink in their downstairs loo.

You could have the door outward opening. The space in the bedroom is unusable anyway as you need to walk through it to get into the ensuite. You may then find you have more usable space.

Why not just make it a WC or just a shower? Whichever you need more?

Exactly! I would hate the smell wafting in to the bedroom. DH's 💩 stinks!!

I think it is worth it.

But I'd also check the cost of putting new plumbing etc in. We turned a dressing room into another bathroom and it was 20K, although that did include everything. Think labour to get the plumbing put in was 8 or 9K or thereabouts.

We’ve just added an en suite as part of an extension, it’s 1m x 2.2m so almost exactly the same square footage as yours, but rectangular. It’s been completely worth it, no regrets at all.

We did this and it was well worth it.

However, we had our door across the corner and opening outwards, which made it jut out much less into the room. The door goes where the red line is.

Ours is smaller and doesn't have a loo. The measurements are 1m wide, with one wall 1.5 m and the other 1.3m