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 5x7-foot bath liked to talk about it, so architects and builders established the stillstanding habit of tucking it away. The result? Our standard 5x7-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
