AIBU to not understand the current obsession with bathrooms?

[BadRuby]

It seems like a lot of properties are shoehorning in an en suite or an extra toilet or shower room wherever they can.

I just saw a miniscule 2 bed flat with a family bathroom and a chunk taken out of the main bedroom for a shower en suite surely the space could have been better used for storage, or literally anything else? What need is there for 2 bathrooms in a 2 bedroom flat?

I've seen this a lot in new builds as well, and it's just bizarre!

There is nothing wrong with an extra bathroom or two for those who like them, but what people take umbrage to, is that already small rooms in houses are being made even smaller with a extra bathroom or two. Which people do not appreciate and why should they? Room sizes in this country are a joke.

There would be far less complaints if the room sizes were not impacted.
I would not choose a house with small rooms because of an extra bathroom.

We’ve got more bathrooms than people in our home! I’d never thought about it before.

@Sonichu

only on MN would only having one bathroom be considered "backwards" or that having the luxury to turn your nose up at places without multiple bathrooms be considered the norm rather than the exception.

I know right! Madness!

Most people I know live in a house or flat with one bathroom ONLY... even .... people with a family with 2 or 3 kids (or more!) (SHOCKER!)

Some people have a downstairs loo, but some just have the one bathroom/one loo, and that's it. And ya know what? They manage to cope. Amazing really!

There is nothing wrong with having one bathroom/loo per person in the house if that's what floats your boat, or if you feel you need that. But to look down your nose at people who have ONLY one bathroom (when there is more than 2 of them,) is actually laughable and pathetic, and is making you look remarkably silly and precious.

Most of the world would piss themselves laughing and such precious snowflakery. 'Oh you only have one bathroom when there's THREE of you?!' 'How DO you cope.' 😧 faints 😲

There's only me and DH now, and sometimes I'd like a spare loo as he spends so long in there, (some days,) but we had one bathroom/one loo for 20 years with a family of 4, and I can't ever recall there being an issue with it.

Also, I grew up in a family of 4 (me, my brother, and my folks,) and we had one loo/one bathroom only, and again, not one single issue ever..

This really is alien to me. (People acting shocked at people having just one bathroom!) As I said, 90% of everyone I know has one bathroom. About a third of them have an extra loo, but multiple bathrooms is not a thing with anyone I know. The odd few people have an en suite in addition to a bathroom (in new-ish houses,) but most people have just the one bathroom.

But I don't think anyone on this thread has made any such assertion shinycat, just noted that they enjoy having their extra bathroom on a thread which mocks the extra bathroom, no one has actually described having a single bathroom as backwards or mocked that, I doubt many of us born before 2000 had the luxury of any ensuites growing up, I certainly didn't and we were fine - obviously, however I do enjoy having the extra bathrooms (only in the last 18 mths, was a single tiny downstairs bathroom not extra toilet before so have gone from one extreme to the other), in our new house, however that does not mean I look down on anyone else as that would be ridiculous! I mean who fucking cares about anyone else's bathroom arrangements - apart from the op who obviously does care hence starting the thread.

maddening:

PatellarTendonitis Tue 04-Feb-20 22:43:11
Sounds great to me! One bathroom is like no mixer taps and no showers in places, backwards AF.

The more bathrooms the better! I love having a nice clean bathroom for guests that doesn’t contain any of my lotions/medicines/personal items. A half bathroom downstairs as well, no one has to wait for the loo. & En-suite is great as I don’t have to blindly walk down a dark hallway in the middle of the night to wee 😂!

@Shinycat we have 5 kids, on bathroom, no shower. And yes, we are all fine and not laughed out of town. I’d say 3/4 of families we know have one toilet. For us it’s not really somewhere we hang out much, and we manage to go to the loo before people bathe. I sometimes wonder how these people who can’t hold their bladders or bowels at all cope with long journeys or manage to work.

Agree you don't really need more than one if there's only 1 or 2 people living there. I live in a house where there's only one toilet that's in the bathroom upstairs and there's 5 of us living here. There was a downstairs toilet, but it was demolished when extending the kitchen. I'm in the process of making the cupboard under the stairs into a loo because when Lo is out of nappies, they'll be 5 of us needing the toilet. You can't even have a bath in this house without someone breaking the door down because they need the toilet. It's also infuriating if you need to go before you go out and it's occupied.

Upsideround, you could fix a shower over the bath. It would make life easier for you all and not cost the earth.

BIL is just in the last stage of a big renovation/extension project. It's a 5-bed house with a self-contained annexe; it has 2 en suites + family bathroom + separate shower room + downstairs bog in the main house and a shower room in the annexe.

Six people can go for a shit simultaneously before they run out of lavatories. You could piss yourself while trying to decide which one to use.

Apparently, this is what people want these days. According to estate agents, the number of bathrooms should be at least the number of bedrooms minus one. How DP and I manage with just one bathroom, I'll never know.

I live in a 1 family bathroom, 1 downstairs loo house so I’ve never had this problem!

I don’t understand why people think more bathrooms means more cleaning? You don’t wash, clean your teeth, poo and wee more just because you have more bathrooms.

If men didn't insist on having epic shits that take 45 minutes, it'd be a lot easier to manage with fewer bathrooms.

Wtf do they do in their? Or is there some fundamental difference in the way our guts work?

We'd kill for an extra toilet, we've only got the 1 (3 bed house) and have 2 adults and 1 child with bowel conditions!

A second (preferably downstairs) toilet is useful. And if there's more than 2 teens+adults a second shower too. But I agree with not seeing the need for en suites in already pokey bedrooms.

YANBU - it was like this last time we househunted (over a decade ago) before we moved into our old place.

The best example was a new build two bedroom flat which had a 'family' bathroom and an en-suite. The master bedroom was so tiny it would only accommodate a standard double bed, there was no room for bedside tables and the bed was hard up against the wall - meaning that one person would have to get in and then slide across. When I asked the agent where we supposed to keep our clothes she suggested using the second bedroom as a dressing room! Bonkers.

However I would not go back to only having one loo. I have two bathrooms (one ground, one upstairs) and it is bliss to be able to go to the loo and not have to wait because DH is in the bath.

Ensuites are essential when you have a household with kids and two working parents. It’s impossible to get ready in the mornings otherwise

Ensuites are essential when you have a household with kids and two working parents. It’s impossible to get ready in the mornings otherwise

Yet so many people manage it.

I agree! I live in a two bed flat with two bathrooms - so unnecessary. I would much prefer a walk in storage room and one bathroom! We even have two baths which seems very decadent!

It's a renovated hotel so I think all the rooms had plumbing so it was easy to make multiple bathrooms

Not really fitting the green agenda, though, is it? Multiple bathrooms mean people can have longer showers, or baths instead, because no one else is waiting. The rise in the need for every bedroom to have its own bathroom has probably contributed to the water issues we're facing in the UK (as reported in the papers this week).

We have a family bathroom, two ensuites and a downstairs loo. It means when we have guests staying, everyone has privacy. Why rough it in your own home?

I miss our en-suite lol would much rather have the downstairs toilet, in the master bedroom. We’re in a 3 story house so middle of the night toilet trips down steep stairs are a touch dodgy

My first property was a new build 2 bedroom 2 bathroom flat. I used the house bathroom for storage 🤣

One of the best things we’ve done to our house was the addition of a downstairs loo when we extended.

One of my biggest regrets is not having enough room to add an en-suite shower room when we did our loft conversion.

We have a separate bathroom and toilet. The house has always had that ( built in 1923). It's 4 bedroomed but we still have no need to create extra bathrooms everywhere!This obsession with extra bathrooms in tiny houses is ridiculous.

When I was younger a friend lived in a house with only a downstairs bathroom. Due to the downstairs layout, you had to walk through the sitting room, the dining room and the kitchen to get to the bathroom.
As a teenager I used to get so embarrassed using their bathroom, if I'd been hanging out in her room - the entire house knew if you were heading to the loo, everyone knew how long you took, you could never be sure how much noise could be heard, everyone knew you were heading back upstairs.
To my friend it was normal - she's never had problems with using public loos either - but to a shy teenager it was awful.