Future proofing a small bathroom

[KatyMac]

Planning a bathroom in a house im buying, it replaces the utility and is next to the existing WC so the new toilet is 40cm(ish) to the left of the existing soil pipe

This is one of many plans

I like a bath, DH likes a shower - im disabled and struggle from getting up from sitting on the floor of the bath and I hate a shower because of sensory issues

The door opens to a hall and will be a pocket or sliding door

Hopefully it will be a wet room (ground floor, concrete floor) & if i end up being unable to use the bath in the future we can just 'remove' it leaving a larger floor space foe a wheelchair

The bath is an omnitub or similar (happy to take recommendations) there will be a window on the back wall - not sure of position yet (it replaces the back door)

I love the built-in steps - but can't work out how to fit them in so im looking for a prettier version of the ikea stool

Ill climb up (2 steps each with 20cm rise) turn and sit on the plinth and swing my legs round, stand in the bath, step down and then sit down

Also looking for more decorative hand rails - can do chrome but the wood ones ive seen wontbwork in a bathroom

I can't work out where the sink goes!

Any helpful suggestions on my plans?

He is 74 (& also chronically ill but fit atm) - i imagine that all too soon he'll struggle with upstairs too

@Geneticsbunny not quite what I'm after but I like the way you think- ill expand my search!

If you are both going to struggle with upstairs then maybe you need to rethink buying this house rather than planning a bathroom refurb. It doesn't sound suitable for either of you tbh.

We are in a ground floor annex, the family will use upstairs

When I lived in Japan, the whole bathroom was the shower - basically a room with a sink and a square bath and a shower attachment on the wall (toilet separate). That's a pretty standard arrangement over there (as you keep the water from bath to bath so always shower before you get in).

It might be worth looking at Japanese bathroom layouts, they've probably got some pretty nifty space saving ideas.

Thanks - I did exactly that this morning and things very similar to what I have planned came up - difference were they had much bigger basins and as you say the loo was separate

We are starting to get enough of an understanding to go into the conversation with the bathroom person

We turned a very small room into a shower room (no bath but not actually big enough for a loo shower and basin) by tanking the room then building an 8 inch stud wall for a hinged shower screen to connect to. When closed it fitted neatly in front of the shower head and the complete 'shower cubical' was only that deep. When open you couldn't access the sink apart from in the wet bit of the shower but no one needed to the bit of the room outside of the 'cubical' stayed dry because of the glass screen.

If you took that approach you might be able to have the shower and toilet to one side of the door and the bath to the other, leaving you with plenty of room to manoeuvre in the middle, and a shower which is already seat or wheelchair friendly.

Sorry I can't see the dimensions of your room so perhaps it would still be too tight, but it would absolutely open up the floorspace when the shower wasn't in use

It's 1.4 by 2.2

Im struggling to visualise that, I get the wall/shower screen folded away bit, but not the layout, sorry