I think we've over-corrected on that front. Indeed, one place in which I lived (a modern build) had (on paper) five bedrooms and four bathrooms (three en suite). But there were four of us, so two of those 'bedrooms' weren't used as such; leaving too many bathrooms. Mad really, I agree. Downstairs WC in addition to those.
(And it's not like there were a plethora of reception rooms to go with them - surely a family that was going to actually use five bedrooms as five bedrooms would want space to spread out a bit, even if a couple of them had to share a bathroom as a result?!)
(Before that a three-bedroom Victorian build - one nice large bathroom and a small WC+shower room, I suspect the latter was a later division. Neither en suite. Point is it is (was?) a modern fetish, and I think (hope?) it's waning slightly.)
Most people with a family of four or a 3 bedroom place would have 2 baths (or often 1 proper bath and one toilet without shower/bath) in Europe too. What I find a bit strange is the "4 bedroom / 4 bathroom" thing. Bathroom 3/4 seems a bit over the top.
I imagine it's because 1-2 of those would be ensuite to one or more of the bigger bedrooms and/or that one or more aren't full baths.
Agreed completely. I have a 4-bedroom, 3 bath house, and we use them all. We have one attached to our master bedroom, one main bathroom on the main floor, and one in the basement. We spend a lot of time as a family in the basement, we spend a lot of time with guests on the main floor, and my wife likes to use our private bathroom as a little getaway.
I think a decent rule of thumb is one bathroom per floor, plus one. It really sucks having to wait for a bathroom when you need it, and they take up so little space (especially if it doesn't have a bath/shower) that it makes no sense to skimp. We've used all the bathrooms simultaneously, so it's hard for me to consider having fewer.
Counter to that, I live in the DC suburbs, where housing tends to be from the mid-1970s or newer. The house I grew up in was a "standard" colonial (1800swft 4 and a door) with 2.5 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms. The first home I owned was similar. My current townhome is 3 beds with 2.5 baths.
In all cases, we could have done without 1 of the full baths, or the half-bath, without problem. The extra was purely convenience (but appreciated growing up with a sister who could take some time getting ready).
I don't disagree with the 'vast majority' not having them, but I don't think it's S unusual as you imply either. Probably the vast majority don't have an en suite bathroom either (I don't mean to imply a complete intersection, these are two 'vast majority' circles in a Venn diagram), but the new builds have multiple.
Coal cellars in particular are/were especially common.
That's a very valid point, but I assume the same trend would show up (though not as drastically) in the number of bathrooms per bedroom. (If not, then the article is bunk, but I assume it does.)
I'd also be interested to know the trend in the percentage of floor space given over to bathrooms, which would fuzz both the number of bathrooms and the increased bathroom size. It seems to me like a lot of space wasted, personally, although I admit it does feel nice to walk into a (rare) beautiful full-sized master bathroom.
As a guy who lives in a 7x5m studio somewhere in Eastern Europ, in a building like this one http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3152/3082829290_9653703b1e_b.j..., I try and try again to find out why would you need three bathrooms and five bedrooms, but I really cannot think of any reasons.
Well when the term was coined, the key was two full width rooms each floor. Get out into the industrial and poorer areas especially in the North, Scotland and Wales and there were some one up, one down back to back terraces. Most of those went in slum clearances, but some survive...
Sure, the indoor bathroom/toilet was added later as it was a Victorian era innovation, but the second room on the ground floor was generally a back kitchen/diner. So you'll find a great many with a later kitchen extension (frequently flat roofed, and incredibly poorly, or not insulated) that permit separating kitchen and dining room, often adding an upstairs indoor bathroom/toilet for the first time. When those extra rooms were there from new build they weren't called 2+2s -- though they were clearly two bed houses derived from them.
UK estate agent standard for describing housing is number of bedrooms. Apparently we're meant to figure everything else from "two bed", "five bed". What else is in there is often quite varied and ludicrously (fraudulently) creative in estate agent blurb. Thank heavens for the relatively recent expectation of a floorplan and regulation limiting estate agent creativity. Until the 1980s or 1990s you almost never got a floorplan unless buying new, or exceptionally upmarket. :)
I lived in a two-up, two-down in Windsor, and my wife (when I met her) had one in Bexley.
They're nice houses. The main issue is that most now have to have an extension on the back to house an indoor bathroom. In my house, it was ground floor after the kitchen. In my wife's it was upstairs above a kitchen extension, but you could only get to it after going through the main bedroom. Handy as an en-suite, awkward if you had friends to stay.
One of the thing that struck me about British houses and apartments is that they tend to have en-suites "no-matter-what". I don't think I've ever seen a single house or apartment with an en-suite before I moved to England (also: carpets in the bathroom, wtf?! And the weird thing with two taps.)
I find it rather curious waste of space, especially in ~50/60m2 apartments. Why do you need more than toilet and shower? I suppose that parallelized pooping and/or showering can be useful in rare occasions, but usually doing it serially works well enough and overall seems like an exceedingly poor trade-off. But the Brits seem to love 'em shrug.
Crossing borders can also be fun; with some crossings you can see an immediate and marked difference in building style; the Dutch/Belgian border is like that for example.
New Zealand houses are just horrible, full stop. Don't know how they managed to get so far behind on the rest of the Western world with that.
Not sure what I'm trying to say with this comment; don't really have a specific point as such. I just find it interesting that different countries have such different approaches to building and arranging houses, even though they're relatively similar in culture, climate, etc.
a house i am looking at has a bathroom for every bedroom. it makes no sense and i am contemplating removing 1.5 of them for more storage if i buy the house (it's not looking likely).
> I have a 4-bedroom, 3 bath house, and we use them all.
This tends to be more or less valid for any resource in the house (extra room, closet, etc.). And as it stands bathrooms are on the important side. If you had one bathroom per resident they'd still all be used simply because the people would thoroughly enjoy not having their stuff moved around or bothered by anyone else, or ever risk having to wait for someone to get out first. So you'd just have "assigned" bathrooms.
You could even have an extra one that can come in handy when you are remodeling or simply experiencing technical issues in one of the others.
I used to own a three bedroom suburban townhouse that had 3½ baths. Each bedroom had a walk-in closet and en-suite bathroom. It definitely made the properties (this was a 10 unit condominium) attractive for people who wanted roommates
> I believe it's mainly because many bathrooms allow the apartments to be shared by several flatmates.
In Europe (at least in the UK) it's common for houses/apartments to be shared by many flatmates regardless of the number of bathrooms. 4 seems to be roughly the upper limit on 1 bathroom. 5 bedroom places almost always have 2. And many houses with only 1 bathroom will have a second small toilet-only room.
Bedroom count is ridiculous, it's an estate agent's marketing game whether a room's a study or another bedroom.
Should just be #kitchens, #bathrooms, #loos, #other IMO. Number of fitted/room-like cupboards etc. would be a bit useful too, but size so variable it would only give a very rough idea.
(And it's not like there were a plethora of reception rooms to go with them - surely a family that was going to actually use five bedrooms as five bedrooms would want space to spread out a bit, even if a couple of them had to share a bathroom as a result?!)
(Before that a three-bedroom Victorian build - one nice large bathroom and a small WC+shower room, I suspect the latter was a later division. Neither en suite. Point is it is (was?) a modern fetish, and I think (hope?) it's waning slightly.)
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