BEFORE THE ARCHITECT CONCEPT DRAWINGS
Bathroom Design and Master Bedroom Design ADA Compliant
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Offered to the Autocad Granddad as an added bathroom in need of bathroom remodeling ideas for small bathroom floor plans, this project has some interesting challenges: a.) we started with an e-mailed word description and no pictures until a much later date; b.) the room is to be barrier free.
Drawings to follow are, indeed, Concept Drawings (except the first one to get our heads straight), albethey mostly in 3d home design drawings, not 2D home designs, and not of the entirety of the project, but just of the bathroom.
We started with a 2D home design bathroom floor plans, and have already zeroed in on one plan in particular. In this drawing, the Autocad Granddad has raised the north wall of the bathroom 8'-0" as a simple plane set along the interior wall line of the bathroom. (Note, too, that the AG has dumped the text for now as clutter.)
Successively, here are the other walls from other perspectives.
The West wall, from the northeast . . .
The South wall, from the northeast . . .
And the East wall from the northwest . . .
Now, let's put up all four walls in three different ways. All these views are in perspective from the southeast.
First, the four walls in wire frame.
Next, in hidden line.
Finally, in one of the shaded versions of display flat-shaded, edges on . . .
And just for the fun of it, this is what the Autocad Granddad's screen looks like when he's working this case study. What you see above and below the drawing area backgrounded in black are all the controls of which the old boy must be mindful if he doesn't want to make himself a caught fool (because Autocad 2006 is programmed specially and at great expense to do make any use a caught fool when you're not paying attention to what you're doing). The drawing area itself is filled with distant versions of almost all the drawings you've seen here and in the plan views under this Case Study. The Autocad Granddad pushes a given drawing as far as he can until it doesn't work for him at some developmental stage or another, and then he moves on to another and another, often copying selected elements of one to take along with him. He started this project on this drawing board at the upper left. The last few drawings specifically have come from the bottom rightmost figure on the drawing board. Pretty neat, huh?
For general review, the choice points of bathroom interior design ideas to be worked out by the owners are presented hereinafter:
. . . As drawn, your bathroom space is not storage-friendly. There are ways to ooch space here and there in some novel ways about which the AG has been thinking (along with his secret weapon, Mrs. AG.) Please be as precise as you can about what you want, where you want it, and why you want it that way. Are there special locations for things? Are there special things to be located? How much room do you need for storage? Open storage? Hanging storage? Container storage? How low? How high? How deep? Doors? Drawers? Racks? Appliances of any sort? . . . fixed in place?....pluggable innable? Specially lighted spaces (aside from the white light heat lamp)? . . . Among tools with which to tell your story, consider simply going into the bathroom, closing the door, and doing what you want and need to do relative to placing and taking things, moving around. (For example (though not a storage moment), it occurs to the AG that, while the shower drain will most logically be associated with the other two drains (and likely the shower head(s)), i.e., at the west wall line, the shower controls should be at the east end of the shower, where the entry door is.)
The AG will cool it now, until answers are completed to a variety of questions put to the owners in regard to the finer details of use, need, and want related to this space. It is imperative that the Autocad Granddad get this right, absolutely to the owners' satisfaction. It's time for patience to rule. Bathroom remodeling ideas any remodeling ideas are best managed in successive passes.
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The first answers are now in and they follow:
First some basic dimensions: bathroom as drawn now is in southwest corner. Runs north 12 feet with one frosted glass window about 30" wide above the toilet which is located in northwest corner. Toilet has to be in a corner so we can mount a grab bar.. Toilet is Kohler Gabrielle comfort height one piece toilet. turn east and go 6. Nothing on that wall (yet) except grabbar. Turn north go about 30" and there is a 36 " pocket door. Nothing else on that wall as of yet. Walk-in shower unit is against southern wall. Dimensions are52 x 37.5 x 84". Would prefer it if shower unit as installed on western end of wall. Since bathroom is 6 x12 I take that to mean that I have a 20 x37.5 x 84" space that I can designate to be a closet. I would like it to have roll out shelves s for easier access to things stored in back of closet. That brings us back to the western wall which has the lavatory and the toilet. Toilet has the frosted window above it. I envision a large vanity with surface mounted large medicine cabinet and perhaps wall hung cabinets over the left hand sides. Also want one 18" double towel bar mounted someplace in room. One hook for my terry robe. And one glass shelf mounted somewhere for my collectibles. Hope this is enough detail to get you thinking. If you want to see the cabinets we are leaning towards they can be found under Kraftmaid, wood species birch door style multi-recessed panel.
Excellent. There's plenty here to get rolling.
What follows is a pair of perspective views from the northeast to the southwest, essentially looking from the bedroom into the bathroom. Color designations should be definitive by this stage in our work. The 3d design constructs are in wire frame first and hidden line second. The north and east walls of the bathroom are not indicated, in order to reduce clutter. Comments and questions follow the two drawings.
Wireframe of the bathroom . . .
Hidden line of the bathroom . . .
Oh, what the heck. This is the hidden line drawing colored in.
Here come the comments in the form of narrative on bathroom interior design ideas.
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Tight space it is at 6'-0"x9'-2" interior dimension. Storage space is hard come-by, except in the cabinetry, which seems antithetical to the barrier free objective. The geezer could really have blown this one. |
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Fixtures are blocked in, true to their actual dimensions. The shower is shorter than previously drawn. The lavatory has to be barrier free below (with mandated specificity). The bog is in the corner, in order to advantage a grab bar on the north (currently omitted) wall. |
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Dimensions of and between things are purposely omitted for now, so that order and placement get the primary focus. This learning experience is inherent to design describe, draw, surprise, reconsider at its best. Measuring will be important when elements don't fit and function they way the owners' want and need. All these three drawings are simply the first round on conversation on the subject. |
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The size and placement of things are as close as the AG could get to what's on the owners' minds. The one thing for sure that the AG couldn't do was stretch the length of the room to 12' as described, so the entry door had to stay put. And, the AG left out the towel bar, pending resolution of other matters, particularly the grab bar question below. |
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The partition at the east end of the shower is for containing water supply pipes and controls. |
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There could be ways to add storage space, but it's best to let this work lay for a while in the hands of the owners. |
Here come some questions:
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Is this what the owners had in mind? |
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Aren't the cabinetry doors a contradiction to barrier freedom? |
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The AG faked the lavatory dimensions at 19"x21", and asks, can these numbers get hardened up? |
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How long, how high, and in what diameter is the north wall grab bar to be? |
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Is more storage needed? Hanging? Shelving? Roll-out drawers? |
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Right now, there is a 2-3/4" free space each side of the bog. Is this roomy enough? |
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The lavatory is cheek-to-jowl with the floor cabinet which, in turn, is similarly crammed up against the shower bath. Is this reasonable? Especially in regard to the cabinet-to-shower juxtaposition, is the shower to have a fixed panel at its interface with the floor cabinet? |
That's enough for now. Let's hold off for feedback from the owners.
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A local architect took over from here (prematurely), for better or worse (probably for worse given that he demonstrated no interest in the very real health-based concerns of the clients beyond common institutional ADA amendments). Modifications to our drawings included adding a storage shed to the northeast side of the deck for both storage and screening, a mandated wrap-around ramp from the deck, and a space-wasting 3' more to the bathroom and 3' less to the closet.
Moral: ADA compliance with accessibility or adaptability is only a facet of real compliance with the needs and wants of a client.
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