Using drapes as an area/room separator

This might work, especially if you go top-of-the-line, stain resistant for the curtain fabric.

Remember, down the road, this is not a child-friendly decorating concept--and the grubby fingered child is likely to win.

Oh yeah, I'm not going cheap on this baby, this is the house I'm going to die in.

No kids this is strictly an adult house, plus it's a guest bath, so not really heavy use.

So you don't think the open space above the rod would look strange?

What would you suggest Noddy?

We thought of screens, but we do have a cat, and will be getting 2 kittens, so they, or us would surely knock them over in our exhuberance.

Kirk suggested an accordian door, but I nixed that. It would be really be an eyesore.

What else can be used? I'm having a mental block.

Why is ventilation such an issue?

I have a mold phobia I suppose.

When someone does use the bathroom, or takes a shower in there, I don't want condensation/mold/odors.

I hate having rooms completely closed off anyway. I was one of those kids that always slept with their door cracked open.

I just visited a couple accordian door websites, and it just reinforced my opinion that they are ugly.

Maybe I'm sounding hoity-toity (and by this time you know I'm not) but I actually bought the living room furniture a year ago, and have been keeping it in storage, because it was PERFECT and knew I'd never find it again.
Same for paint, I'm doing the LR with a paint that will look like suede.

This house was an absolute wreck when I got it in '91. It's kind of like my lifes mission right now.

Does that give you any other ideas Soz? I'm really getting excited.

Sounds like you've been doing a great job, I can't wait to get to that point. (I'm chipping away slowly at the free or dirt-cheap projects, but we have no money for anything more substantial and won't for a while because once we DO have money we have to use it on boring things like fixing the roof... sigh...)

Hmm, do you have a fan in the bathroom?

I tend towards simplicity, can't quite get my mind around a curtain working in that situation. (Not that it can't, at all -- I'm sure it could, I'm just drawing a blank.) I'd probably go more towards an interesting color for the bathroom door than the curtain route.

How about a folding door you can paint nicely?
Something like this here...

One pleasant thing about a leaving a gap is that gaps can always be filled.

Have you considered some sort of bead curtain? You'd get a lot of ventilation that way. The beads would be less bulky than fabric and more visually interesting, making a virtue of necessity.

I don't think I understand the space.

Does the bathroom open directly into the living room?
are the 5 and 3 foot walls both perpendicular to the wall that has the bathroom opening in it?

Have you added a bathroom fan with vent to outside to remove moisture?

Have you considered partial shutter doors? for example two doors that are about 18" wide, the top part being shutter (louver, so you can open and close)?

My main bathroom door is a door with something like 20" x 28" space for glass - in which I've put thick tempered antique glass. That is fairly hard to see a person through clearly. I've added a light curtain for the window, that being a pretty scarf, so you can see light through it but definitely not a person. This door doesn't let air out, except at floor level, but then I have another very openable window at the other end of the bathroom, plus a fan.

A beaded curtain
With 3 cats

Actually <wiping tears from eyes> I had thought of that idea, and liked it because it could have like a Persian Haram look, like uniting Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Persia but with 3 four-legged friskies around I can just imagine the tinklings and rattlings at all hours, not to mention the little beads found in the litter box after making their journey through the kitty highway. Thanks Noddy for the idea though.

I know Osso, I didn't explain it right.

OK, to change the perspective......

There already is a bathroom door, yes, and fans and vents.
Picture this, you are standing in the bathroom door, facing out toward the living room......

On your right hand is a wall that goes straight out 3 feet, on your left hand is a wall that goes out 5.5 feet.
Thus, when you step out of the bathroom you are standing in an area, as wide as the bathroom door (what 4 feet?) with a short wall on your right and a slightly longer wall on your left.
We thought about building a screening wall where you would step out of the bathroom, have to hang a sharp right to get out of the bathroom area. But as I said, that'll that a few feet of floor space I'd rather not sacrifice, plus the opening where the screening wall would be would only allow for a 2.5 foot opening.
Kirk has never liked the idea of having a bathroom where it can be seen from the living room, even if the door is closed, it's still a bathroom door and offends his sensibilities. I see his point.
I was just thinking putting a curtain (or something) at an angle creating a straight line between the long wall and short wall would create a barrier from having to see the bathroom, or the bathroom door, and it would be something that could be easily slid back and forth to allow access.

It doesn't have to be velvet, that was just an example, since that's the material that would most go with the room.

I know, it sound like I'm going to be living in a brothel, doesn't it?

BTW, this bathroom was totally remodeled about 2 years ago, so it's fine.

I am personally a little chary about the diagonal, which doesn't mean you should be - I'm just trying to figure what I might do.

are those walls the walls to other rooms?

What I'm getting at is the possibility of extending the 5.5 wall with a continuing fin wall of, say, two feet, and then building a one foot thick bookshelf (possibly see through, or not) that spans the space, and leaves an opening, then, of 3 feet between the new bookshelf (or screen) and the 3 foot wall.

What is obviously wrong about this is that it would butt two feet into your living room - but it also could look nice and hold books and ceramics, etc.

Or to use the same idea a little more easily, make the new fin wall (extension of the 5.5 foot wall) only one foot into the room, and then put a handsome screen at a right angle to that.