Opinions please: sinks in bedrooms

[wowfudge]

We've just moved house and two of the bedrooms have sinks in them - one has a vanity unit. It's an Edwardian house and I don't know if there would have been sinks in those rooms originally or if they are a later addition (quite a grand house built for someone wealthy at the time). Anyway, I think they are pretty naff, but what does anyone else think?

We have a family bathroom on the same floor as these two bedrooms, a downstairs cloakroom with loo and there's an attic bedroom with ensuite so we are not short of facilities!

Very old fashioned, but kind of useful if you have the space.

I think they are pointless
nearly always when you want to wash you want to use the toilet also-
my mum has a basin in her spare bedroom and you end up going back and forth between the hand basin and the bathroom, it's maddening
plus she has a separate toilet with no hand basin, so if you use the toilet you then have to go either to the bathroom or the spare bedroom to wash your hands, touching 2 door handles on the way...arghh.

I absolutely hate them. I also hate ensuites though, so maybe I'm just weird...

I had one in my bedroom at my parents' house. Hidden in a wardrobe so not too obvious, but meant I could dye my hair however I liked without ruining the family bathroom

Yes, ensuites are vile.

Useful but I wouldn't want them and would almost certainly remove them.

The house we live in at present had one in a cupboard in the sitting room when we moved in... Did think about adding some optics, a little fridge and setting it up as a full wet bar but husband less keen! So now it's a standard Edinburgh press cupboard with CDs and DVDs in.

We have a sink in our master bedroom. When we moved in we wanted to tear it out but we've kept it as it's so handy! Our room is in the loft with only one bathroom on the ground floor so it's great. Saves a lot of traipsing up and down stairs. We're going to make it a little less dated now instead of ripping it out.

My DH had them removed from the bedrooms in our Victorian house when I was away on a work course. I was livid as I had been brought up with them and found them incredibly useful. Our three DC were little at the time but two years ago we had them reinstalled and our now-teenage DC are delighted.

Maryz is spot on - it is bliss that the mascara, foundation smears and facial wipes now end up in their sinks rather than the family bathroom and the reduction in squabbles is soothing.

Live with them for a bit OP and you will come to love them.

If you'd asked me 5 years ago, I'd have said to rip out. Now I have a teen daughter, I'd love a sink for her bedroom. If I were you, I'd leave them.

Does anyone else call them washbasins?

To me a sink is something you have in the kitchen. My dh has always called them sinks, though. I used to find it very odd.

I call them basins. Sinks are in kitchens or laboratories.

Sink here. A basin is an old fashioned type sink that doesn't drain ie a large wash bowl thing servants brought up

They have been a godsend at various stages of growing up. How can something so useful be naff surely that's just snobbery really. As for hating en suites, please expand people?

I had them in an Edwardian house, 1 upstairs bathroom, downstairs toilet, four bedrooms, the two second biggest had sinks. The sinks were lovely, big squarish features with a lip at the back.

I kept them when refurbishing the house and never regretted it.

Keep, but disguise, if you don't like the look !

We've got two - one in each guest room in our Edwardian house. They are beautiful old sinks that the previous owners source carefully so we have left them in!

Naff. Like a cheap guesthouse with a shared bathroom

That's a good point. I believe there are some families who have to share a bathroom, and some of them have guests. What would you suggest for such people?

Have you heard of Prince Charles and the napkin rings?

I love them, they remind me of university. But men WILL piss in them.

Now I want to know about Prince Charles and the napkin rings no idea why

I used to wee in my sink when I was at uni and I'm female. I can't be the only person.

(this may not be entirely true)

When Prince Charles was a young man, he was influenced by older men with traditional (some might say outdated) attitudes.

On one occasion, he managed to sneak out from a dinner at the Mansion House for a breath of air with his chum John Betjeman, the well-known poet and snob.

As they strolled past Mappin and Web, admiring the bejewelled castles, Charles spotted something unfamiliar. "I say, John" quoth he, "What are those short cylindrical silver things?"

"Those are Napkin rings, sir," replied the poet.

"Napkin rings?" exclaimed the prince, "What on earth are they?"

"Well, sir," explained Betjeman, "There are some people who can't afford fresh linen at every meal, so they shake out their napkins, roll them up, and leave them in those rings to be used again."

"My God!" exclaimed Charles, "Can there be such poverty?"

thanks PigletJohn

En-suites - I've seen too many small, damp and smelly en-suites. I also don't like the idea of where you wash and go to the toilet being right by where you sleep. The houses I hate most are those ridiculous ones where every bedroom has an en-suite, and there is no communal bathroom. Just how much washing do people need to do? And all that extra cleaning.