Hm, article talks about new homes coming with 10 to 20 bathrooms. I have never seen or heard of such a thing. There's no way that's for normal houses. If the ultra rich want mansions with 20 bathrooms, that's their business. There are worse things one could spend their money on.
I have always lived in places with around 1 bathroom per 2 persons. Sometimes though you'll have say 5 people in the house and 2 of them are using both bathrooms, both doing things that take a long time. At this point when a third person needs to use the bathroom, they are stuck with holding it or having to go outside. So I can see that getting closer to 1 bathroom per person can be reasonable. Not all the bathrooms need to be full baths. Having a utility bathroom near the front door for guests with just a toilet and limited storage or room to do things helps maintain a bathroom that isn't going to be occupied for a long time.
Multiple bathrooms in houses is a relatively modern thing. And it's the sort of thing that's often hard to retrofit. So houses that are otherwise desirable may otherwise be short of bathrooms by modern standards.
The overloaded term "bathroom" is not very helpful. What do these bathrooms have in them? Do they have a bath, or a toilet, or both, or what? I think we should be told!
More toilets than bedrooms - e.g., the 20:8 ratio mentioned in the article - makes perfect sense for a house that might see large numbers of guests at once.
One bath per person surely can't hurt, if you can afford it, though averaged out this is probably going to mean a bath:bedroom ratio of around 1:1.
Due to a water leak and repairs my family of 4 has temporarily gone from 2.5 bathrooms to 1. It's miserable when everyone needs to go at once. Plus guests now have to come upstairs to use a toilet.
We have one bathroom for the four of us, and I’ve never had a particular desire for more. That’s just extra toilets and showers to clean and extra pipes to leak. No thanks.
One bathroom with a toilet, sink and bath/shower combo, one en-suite bathroom with toilet, sink and shower and one toilet + sink. I guess the technical term (as used by property people) is 2 1/2 bathrooms.
When I was young some friends of mine lived in a house where every bedroom (in a 6 bedroom house) had an en-suite bathroom, plus one additional bathroom. While I certainly don't expect every bedroom to have its own bathroom (or even close to it, really), I don't think its strange for a large house to have multiple bathrooms.
I live in a 3/1 in the US, and having a 2nd bathroom was on our list, but when it comes down to it, we all end up sacrificing something.
As you mention, an en suite master bathroom would be incredibly nice, and if we remodel, it's _the_ #1 non-negotiable item on the list. Private bathroom for us, 'clean'/separate bathroom for guests/visitors.
My sister lived in a 4/1 with an odd feature: a toilet on a wooden pedestal in the (full-size) basement. No wall around it, not even a curtain. Just sitting there in a corner.
As she put it "you only need it every once in awhile, but when you need that second toilet, you're REALLY GLAD you have it!
I don't find the proliferation of bathrooms/toilets in large houses surprising at all. If I lived in a 4000-5000sqft mansion, I might not mind a 2-3 minute walk to get to my bedroom at night, but I sure as hell don't want to have to do so every time I have to use the facilities. It simply makes sense to have a toilet and sink, at least, near the rooms you use regularly.
Bathroom expectations in the US have definitely risen. Not just in terms of the individual bathroom amenities but the number. I actually have a medium sized house (1800 sq ft or so) and I have one small bathroom. But then that was carved out somehow from existing space in a house built before indoor plumbing.
Having multiple bathrooms (with showers) is nice because in the mornings people can get ready in parallel rather than in serial and so people are less likely to be late. It's a good thing to have, but yes, it isn't really a necessity. It's a relatively new thing even in America -- the 1960s era house I grew up in America in the 1970s-1980s had just one bathroom for the whole family.
Furniture and remodeling (and by that I mean projects as small as painting or installing a paper towel
holder) are a one-time cost while bathrooms (for renters especially) cost money every month.
And while we all use the bathroom multiple times per day, most of the day it sits there unused.
It’s not hard to stagger morning bathroom use with your significant other or family. I’m not saying that a family of six would want to share one bathroom. But when I see people insisting on one person per bathroom plus a powder room, that’s excessive.
Those houses are designed for entertaining and large parties. Any event hall that you go to will have at minimum 1 bathroom for each gender with multiple stalls, 2-6. This is still a home, so they choose not to have stalls in bathroom setting, hence 6-10 "extra" bathrooms.
Additionally in the very large houses the bed/bath ration doesn't capture the setting of the bathrooms. There is a house not to far from me that has a connected indoor pool and that has 3 bathrooms for changing/shower.
We always had one bathroom for a family of five (5) growing up and, honestly, there was never an issue with it. Since it was always that way we learned from birth (practically) that you can't hog the bathroom, so everyone learned not to, so nobody ever did. I always toweled off, dressed, and did my hair in my bedroom. There was certainly no reading on the toilet or other activities going on in the bathroom. Plus, it was normal, I can't think of a single person I knew growing up that had multiple bathrooms (grew up poor, everyone lived in older construction, mostly smaller apartments). My dad actually grew up in a family of ten (10) with only 1.5 bathrooms.
Even now friends comment on how little time I spend in the bathroom.
Nowadays I have 1.5 baths, which is usual for this area (old construction). The half bath it totally unnecessary (just myself and my spouse here) but it's sometimes nice not having to go upstairs to pee. And of course the half bath isn't original to the house.
Actually now that you mention it the bathrooms in Sweden when I visited were notably magical.
Maybe the author of the article should write about how many bathrooms Swedes have, installed in series every 10 years rather than in parallel when the house is built. A one bathroom house where the bathroom has been replaced 4 times in 40 years counts as 4 bathrooms.
You mean an actual bathroom or a room with a toilet and sink in? If it were the latter I would understand but three rooms with an actual bath? In a three bedroom house? That is absurd.
I just built my house with three bathrooms. ("Two and half," by American standards.) I almost did four, but I just didn't want to have to scrub another toilet.
Why three toilets:
The "half bathroom" is by the kitchen, living room, ect. It's just a sink and toilet. This is the one that, by courtesy, guests use. Because there's no bath, guests don't see our towels, toothbrushes, and other mess that accumulates. (No toothpaste stuck in the sink!) We also put prettier fixtures in there, because it's the one we go in most often.
Then there's a normal bathroom (toilet, sink, and tub) that the kids and overnight guests can use.
Then we have our master bathroom, attached to the master bedroom, which has a toilet, shower, and two sinks. (Useful when my wife and I brush our teeth at the same time.) The point of keeping it attached to the master bedroom is basically so we don't have to walk around the house in "bedclothes" when we have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Another thing that this article misses: A lot of people like to loose track of time reading on the toilet. There's nothing wrong with that when you have extra toilets in your house.
Having at least two bathrooms is an absolute life saver - if you only have one and something goes wrong you pretty much have to stay in a hotel. Not to mention having some privacy from guests is great. So that doesn't seem like an excess to me.
I have always lived in places with around 1 bathroom per 2 persons. Sometimes though you'll have say 5 people in the house and 2 of them are using both bathrooms, both doing things that take a long time. At this point when a third person needs to use the bathroom, they are stuck with holding it or having to go outside. So I can see that getting closer to 1 bathroom per person can be reasonable. Not all the bathrooms need to be full baths. Having a utility bathroom near the front door for guests with just a toilet and limited storage or room to do things helps maintain a bathroom that isn't going to be occupied for a long time.
reply