Jason & Susan

Our original master’s bathroom was tiny in size, just big enough to fit one toilet, one sink basin, and a shower stall. It was so small that a tub wouldn’t have fit inside. Most of the apartment layouts in the entire complex also have tiny bathrooms, perhaps preferred by the Chinese over bigger bathrooms/smaller something else. This was the case with our place — 4 spacious bedrooms, 7 balconies (excessively unnecessary), but 2 tiny bathrooms! One of the balconies adjacent to the master’s bathroom is about three times the size of the bathroom. When we decided to purchase the place, we had plans to knock out the wall in between, extend the wall further out and double the size of the master’s bath. Since we still had 6 other balconies, it wasn’t a big deal that one would be smaller. We’d rather have a larger, more comfortable bathroom. Who wouldn’t? So that was the plan until….

When we actually received the keys / ownership to our place, the complex’s “HOA” (home owners association) noted that external modification cannot be made on any apartment, including walls, doors, windows, balcony seals, etc… Our plan for the bathroom expansion was spoiled and we were very disappointed. However, one of the managers did say we could proceed to do the wiring/piping (referring to our bathroom expansion) because there was the possibility that HOA might change their mind later. It was a tacit greenlight to do what we want/can first without knocking down the walls yet. (China….)

So we did work on everything else on the house except for the bathroom. We didn’t even do the wires/pipes for the bathroom, just in case HOA doesn’t change the policy and we’d have to redo the wires/pipes. We wanted to wait for HOA to make a formalized policy. Either that or until the first homeowner to break the rule, so we were told (by our contractor). And that was exactly what happened. Many homeowners wanted to seal their balconies and it was said that if enough people requested balcony seals, HOA would enforce a standard balcony seal for everyone. So everybody waited for HOA to come up with a standard seal but they were too slow to act upon the immediate need of homeowners who were finishing up their “zhuang xiu”.

One place hired their own contractor to do the balcony seal and immediately several places sealed their balconies by the end of the week. For us, we were still waiting for the okay to knock down external walls. Then one day, one of the apartments across from us completely knocked down the entire wall section of their balcony. All the walls were gone leaving their living room completely exposed! Right away, we gave our contractor the okay to knock down our walls. Soon after, everybody else followed suit, a chunk here and a chunk there. The sound of concrete being chipped away was heard all over. This is China’s idea of “HOA”, not very strictly enforced.

Thus, begin the work on the master’s bathroom (3 months after we started work on the house) but first, we had to come up with a good design/layout to fit everything we wanted — a full-size massage tub, double sink, shower stall, cabinets, and a separate toilet stall. Nearly impossible given the space, but Susan managed to come up with a perfect layout after using Google Sketchup!

The construction, for the most part, was pretty smooth. The materials/installation were fairly simple - glass counter top, custom-made wooden cabinets, full length mirror/wall, glass showers, frosted toilet door, etc… however we did hit a few booboos along the way.

#1. The massage tub was purchased several weeks in advance and sat in a warehouse for several weeks. The day it was ready to be installed/delivered, Susan went over during lunch hour to check on the delivery/installation but found the tub inside a big wooden crate sitting on the first floor. The delivery guys said they couldn’t fit the crate inside the elevator nor the fire escape stairway! It was only then we realized that none of the apartments were designed to fit a full-sized massage tub because none of the bathrooms were big enough to fit one! (except for ours) In any case, Susan didn’t have time during her lunch hour to deal with the drama, so she let the workers figure it out themselves. Soon enough, several hours later, Susan went back and indeed the tub was no longer sitting on the first floor. Instead… it was sitting in the study room adjacent to the master’s bedroom, taken apart and stripped naked! The workers managed to fit the tub inside the elevator but they couldn’t get it inside the master bedroom because of the angle in which the door was situated. The only solution was to…. knock down the wall between the bedroom and the study. And that was exactly what they did! How brilliant!

#2 The separate toilet stall design was so that someone (no mention of name) could have some privacy while sitting on the can without hogging (or stinking) the entire bathroom. Some people wish to spend minimal amount of time on the can while others seek solitude and divine intimacy doing their natural businesses. No judgment shall be made thus it was agreed upon that we’d build enclosed partitions around the toilet. The material of choice (by the contractor) was glass, so glass it was. Frosted glass, that is, as we requested for the door. The side would be a full-length mirror (on the outside) and the back would be white-coated glass, adjacent to the shower stall. On the ceiling would be a stand alone turbo-powered ventilation fan. It was a perfect plan! But as “perfect” as it can be in China, this (picture on the right) is what was installed…. sigh… It’ll be the first sight upon entry to the master’s bathroom. That’s privacy flushed down the toilet! Oh well.

Other than that, everything else turned out quite well. The full-length mirror on the side of the toilet stall stands opposite to the sink mirror. It makes the bathroom feel much more spacious than it really is, which is good. Unfortunately, one cannot see the back of the head while staring into the reflection in the mirror. Perhaps twirling around in circles might do the job but then hair would be flying all over the place. Simple science concept any child would have known, but somehow escaped the mind when designing. Oops. On top of that, the workers did not measure the perfect placement of the mirror. The full-length mirror isn’t quite 180 degrees opposite, maybe 182 or 178 because one can see him/herself reflected about 10-15 times in the mirror. Kind of freaky… but one never has to worry about any one sneaking up and scaring the living daylight out of you. You’ll catch glimpse of any possible intruders in any of the mirrors/glass… unless you happen to be sitting on the can doing your #2 business. Now that’s a sight that belongs in the Kodak Polaroid section.

Just like our kitchen… there’s no other master’s bathroom like ours.