Moving the Wall Between Bath and Closet

Eighteen inches borrowed from a closet is often the whole difference between a cramped room and a workable one. The layout notes at master bathroom remodeling lakewood ca osmhi start with that wall, because in most Lakewood houses the bathroom and the closet share it and only one of the two rooms needs its full depth.

Is It Carrying Anything

Look in the attic or the crawl space at which direction the joists above run. A wall parallel to the joists below and with nothing bearing on it above is almost certainly a partition. A wall running perpendicular under a joist end is carrying load, and moving it means a beam, a permit and a structural drawing rather than a demolition bar.

What Is Inside It

Shared walls between a bathroom and a closet often hold the vent stack, because that is where the plumber found room. Opening one up and finding a three inch pipe changes the plan on the spot. Electrical is easier to divert than plumbing, and a supply line is easier to move than a drain line, which has to keep its fall.

What the Depth Buys

Sixteen inches turns a thirty inch vanity run into a forty six inch one, or gives a shower a genuine second person's width. It rarely buys a freestanding tub, which needs closer to forty inches of clear floor with circulation around it. Decide what the depth is for before the wall comes out, not after.

The Closet Side Has a Cost

A closet loses its hanging depth at twenty four inches, and below that it becomes shelving. If the closet is the only one in the bedroom, taking a foot from it can quietly cost more in daily use than the bathroom gains. Measure a hanger before deciding, since that dimension is the one that governs.

The Sequence

Structure first, then the rough in for anything relocated, then the inspection, then close it up. A wall moved after the drain line is set means paying for the same plumbing twice. This is the single decision that has to be made before any other work is ordered, because everything downstream is dimensioned from it.