u/large_adult_son

My house was built in 1979, with a U-shaped floorplan with bedrooms on one side of the house and the kitchen/family rooms on the opposite side. The problem that I have is that the Family Room is not a very usable space. It has 6 doors and a large window, making it difficult to place furniture anywhere but the center of the room. The Family Room also provides the only path between the garage and the rest of the house. It is essentially an oversized hallway that we use as a home office and "everything else" room.

Ideally I'd like to make the Family Room more private, so it can be used as a proper home office or even extra bedroom. The problem is that I still need to have access to the garage from the rest of the house, and I have to consider the laundry and bathroom between the Family Room and the garage.

I don't want to add exterior walls or move existing plumbing if I can avoid it (house is on a slab foundation).

Any recommendations for modifications to the floorplan layout would be very much appreciated!!

I'm framing a small bathroom in a metal building. The plumbing for the toilet was set in a position that assumed that the finished walls would be built right off of the edge of the girts. So there is no room to build a standard frame. I need a somewhat proper frame on all four sides of the bathroom. My thought is to build frames between each girt, sandwiching the girt between frames, connecting each frame with bolts through the girt. So I would essentially have a "sandwich" of frame-girt-frame-girt-frame. My drawing is an attempt to illustrate what I'm thinking. Then I would use furring strips off the studs to bring the surface for the wall flush with the edge of the girts.

Is this my best option?

Ideally I would have the plumbing moved with enough room to build a normally framed bathroom, but that is not an option.