> Of all the weird things in the US, a house having "too many" bathrooms really doesn't seem like a problem.
"Problem" is a bit dramatic, but it is annoying to me when a house I'm looking at has, say, "3 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms." Who the heck needs that many bathrooms, and ultimately you're paying for all those toilets, and they're taking up square feet from living areas.
Also, hot take: en suites suck. I don't need to be _that_ close to where I take a crap. Feels like a prison-cell layout.
> One joined floor for the shower and rest of the bathroom is a weird non-North American thing that is absolutely wrong and I sure hope isn't catching on here.
Hah, funnily enough every time I’m in the US I reflect about what a weird design those low faux-bathtubs are. To each his own I guess
> shared bathrooms are probably a top-5 source of family/marital stress,
Huh, this is apparently one of those shared experiences that I have absolutely no experience with. I can't even imagine anyone in my family getting upset about a bathroom.
> One of the big issues is that if people are given the choice between an extra 3rd or 4th bathroom (that they use twice a year) and good insulation, most people will choose the 4th bathroom.
US luxuries. I don't think any person I know in Europe lives in a house/apartment with more than 4 bathrooms. I imagine 90% live in one with at most 2 bathrooms.
> The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s; it now stands at 2,349 square feet.
> Back in the 1950s and '60s, people thought it was normal for a family to have one bathroom, or for two or three growing boys to share a bedroom. Well-off people summered in tiny beach cottages on Cape Cod or off the coast of California
>I agree, and I like the size of my smaller house. That said, there are some ways that I think the space could be better utilized... for example, we have 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, all of which are smaller than you'd see in a modern home. It was definitely designed with a large, baby booming family in mind.
4 bed 1.5 bath does not sound great. I don't think I have ever seen that one but I know it is a staple for comedy where everyone is trying to use the same bathroom at the same time. That might be less bad now than in the baby boom days. I would not want to share a bathroom with a bunch of kids. But, for a DINK family, a master bedroom, his office, her office, and a guest bedroom with 1.5 baths sounds reasonable.
> I don't see any reason to assume he uses other rooms unless he mentions them.
My eyes are rolling so hard they might get arrested.
> It seemed like you were unimpressed by the space itself.
I am.
> It really seemed to me like you were saying your past experience was significantly smaller.
It was. You're still forgetting to divide the non-bathroom and cooking space by two. Let's be really generous and say that my bathroom and kitchenette were made for ants and took up zero space instead of probably ~28ft2 (3x8 + 2x2). This is of course not true, but it gives an upper bound on the possible square feet per person, 59. Of course if you subtract that 28 first, you end up with 45. And of course let us not forget that 3/4 of one wall had a 45 degree inward slant. So that wall is entirely unusable, as is the space above it.
>yeah, I downsized to a smaller home. Still 3 bedroom, 1800sqft, enough for my family of four. But much less space to clean. Also, heating bills are much lower. Also, damn, I actually can furnish this home with bespoke cabinetry instead of that disposable crap from IKEA. Badass!
I actually live comfortably in an 1800 sq foot house with a family of nine. 1800 sq feet would be far too large for just 4 people.
> I don’t know if apartment living has changed the brains of Americans but I don’t know many guys who when hearing it’ll be/waiting more than an hour or two, wouldn’t just go buy a plunger and drain cleaner.
Your reply seems to be making a lot of nonapplicable assumptions. #1, I'm not American, so I don't know why you're ruminating about the 'brains of Americans'. #2, I know how to use a plunger and drain cleaner, my comment was referring to issues that a lay person cannot readily fix; hence the need for a repair person and the lack of ready availability of such in small rural towns.
> All of these would be completely illegal in my country and I don't understand why Americans agree to work in such conditions.
I'm not American, friend. Poor conditions exist even in very nice places, simply because people don't get together and do anything about it. After all, who wants to be the Bathroom Advocacy Dude?
> Yes, I have [1]. Communal water, toilets and showers.
No, because that's non-prohibitive under current building code. Contrary to popular misconception, it's permissible to have communal facilities; it's just not economically viable, in part because it's extremely undesirable to live in.
> 2 adults, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot
gah! I now feel very spoiled / wasteful american stero type. I'm single (1 dog) and would really not enjoy having less than 2000sqft, currently in 2900+. I have hobbies that need space and I enjoy having dedicated rooms (office, painting, tv/reading/palor, sleeping)
> We don't have ROOM for it. We aren't our parents or our grandparents. We don't own 3000 sq ft detached homes.
I think the implication you're making that previous generations had much more living space is false. My grandparents lived in a rural area in a pretty small home with one bathroom. If you look at 50s tract homes, they're all small by modern standards.
SMH. Americans are a special breed. I assume you have a McMansion?
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