While our new space is beautiful and a huge upgrade on the old library, I think the number one question is “Is this still a bathroom?” with a jiggling of the handle of the door next to the main entrance. Runner up questions include “Is there a washroom here?” and “Where is the washroom?” Sensing a theme, here’s a before and after (and a work-in-progress) shot for you on the state of our washroom!
Before
These are the rooms everyone is looking for! Immediately to the right when you walked into the library, these trusty washrooms served us all for decades.
After
This door is what you’ll see in that place now! It’s actually a new door (all of the doors in this space were no longer to code, so this one is a bit wider than previously), and it’s not the entrance to a washroom at all. This is our new IT room – the IT room was previously an office that was on a window. What a waste of a window!
Right Now
So to answer the earlier questions about where a bathroom will be, here’s a recent picture from the Phase 2 construction area. The new washroom will be in the lounge, and for the moment is simply a red outline on a brick wall. In the old library set-up, we used to have a rather large room sitting in the middle of our space that had nothing in it but a piece of decommissioned air conditioning equipment. Occasionally an awful smell would come out of the room and the building would open the door to investigate, but other than that the room was pretty well abandoned! We asked for this space to be included in the renovation, and it’s now being turned into a nice, new, clean, and accessible washroom. This picture gives the impression that this is some hobbit-sized door, but it’s definitely not! The ceiling is currently removed in the entire area, so it’s a bit of an optical illusion. When the ceiling is back up, it won’t look quite so pint-sized.