Kitchen & Bath: Making Small Bathrooms Work

Making Small Bathrooms Work by Patrick J. Galvin Few people are around now who remember it, but there was a building boom in this country in the 1920s that established a standard with which we are still saddled. That was when a federal law first prescribed that there be at least one bathroom in every urban dwelling unit. Everyone needed it but nobody Figure 1. Standard location of drains Figure 2. Typical 5×7-foot bath liked to talk about it, so architects and builders established the stillstanding habit of tucking it away. The result? Our standard 5×7-foot bath. We often add a few inches, even a foot, in either or both dimensions, but the size is so minimal it is difficult to