Master bedroom suite started from a one-car garage

Sunset, March, 1985

A one-car garage and a 10-foot-wide extension provided enough room for a laundry room and compact master bedroom suite at one end of this small house. The two-level bedroom has an open plan that revolves around a large bathtub.

Measuring 12 by 23 feet, the old garage now contains a 12- by 8-foot laundry and a 12- by 15-foot bedroom big enough for a queen-size bed and a small reading area. One step up, the 10- by 17-foot addition has a 70-gallon fiberglass tub, built-in vanity, 12 feet of closet space, and a sliding glass door to a patio.

Building a wall between bedroom and bath would have made each room seem cramped. Instead, the change of level and the base of the tub suggest a partition. A 2-by-4 frame covered with gypsum board forms the tub surround. The tub rim rests in a neoprene window gasket; insulating foam fills the cavity below.

So that the tub can double as a shower, plumbing runs to a ceiling-mounted shower fixture. An aluminum hospital track suspends extra-long shower curtains; an extension of the track allows them to be pushed out of the way along the wall.

Architect Rann Haight of Clarksburg, California, designed the remodel.