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Original poster

separate loo, with just a loo

103 replies

DonkeyHohtay · 15/06/2019 12:35

Having a "discussion" with DH while homes under the hammer is on. (As you do). One of the properties featured is in Birkenhead, not a million miles from where he grew up. The property had upstairs one room with the bath and handwash basin, and a separate room with just the loo, no sink. This to me is the height of weird. DH thinks it's perfectly normal as that was the configuration in the house he grew up in.

Is this a Merseyside "thing"? I don't get the logic. DH said his parents before they moved managed to squeeze a teeny tiny handwashing sink into the tiny room with the loo, but the main bathroom is still just bath and sink.

OP posts:
peasoup15 · 15/06/2019 16:18

Our house has this configuration, but we installed a new bathroom suite, which included adding a small basin next to the toilet. If we couldn't have fit in a toilet for whatever reason, we would have knocked through. Very handy with two small children.

peasoup15 · 15/06/2019 16:18

*fit in a sink

Dandelion1993 · 15/06/2019 16:20

My DHs grandparents house still has this set up.

I've neve understood it. We had one bathroom growing up and if someone was having a bath then you just had to wait.

Ribeebie · 15/06/2019 16:21

My aunt has this layout in Yorkshire.

EL8888 · 15/06/2019 16:22

In the 80’s my parents bought a 1950’s semi with this and my auntie bought a 1930’s semi with this set up. My parents knocked it all into 1 room, l think my auntie kept them as 2 rooms

It’s grim having no sink

Ginkypig · 15/06/2019 16:42

One of my first flats was in a tenement flat.

The toilet and shower had originally been linen cupboards.i think.

One had the toilet in it which was so small the door (which had to open out the way) touched your knees and the tiny sink sat above your knee so you had to be very careful you didn't knock it of the wall.

and then the cupboard next to it they had fitted a single size square shower cubicle into it so it was just big enough to stand under the water but you couldn't bend to reach your feet! It also had a door but the had put a small glass window into it so you could smile at someone while you showered!

dreichuplands · 15/06/2019 17:03

DH's house in north London had this. A perfectly respectable house and location.

whatnow40 · 15/06/2019 17:23

I'm in the north west and a lot of house are like this, incl PILs. Ours has an even weirder set up. A full size family bathroom with bath, shower, wc and basin. Then another little room with wc AND NO BASIN!

So you still need to walk 4 steps the other way in to the bathroom to wash your hands. What's the fucking point?

longearedbat · 15/06/2019 17:27

Thinking about it, the house where we had a solo loo (no basin) had a washbasin in every bedroom, so handwashing was easy. These basins were so enormous my mum used to use them for bathing the baby, and they had beautiful Delft tile splashbacks. House was built in the 30s.
I think washbasins in bedrooms are very handy. Sadly, most modern houses seem to have such small bedrooms there wouldn't generally be room.

longearedbat · 15/06/2019 17:28

...or of course they often all have en suites anyway, making the bedrooms even smaller!

TildaKauskumholm · 15/06/2019 17:31

I remember houses like that, but you really need a washbasin too, no matter how small. You can even get loos with a basin on top of the cistern so no excuse for not having one nowadays.

habibihabibi · 15/06/2019 17:55

When I was a child my grandparents had a massive house with a big room with two sinks and 4 rooms off it with a shower in one, a bath in another, one with a loo and one that was a big walk in linen cupboard. There was a laundry shoot down to the basement utility room that we used to slide down.
I think the original owner must have been an architect - it was totally OTT.

roses2 · 15/06/2019 18:59

My London mid terraced house had a loo with no sink - I added a sink in around 2007 - it was without a sink for a long time!

LashesZ · 15/06/2019 20:47

I have this in my mid 60s house. I actually love it because DP spends his life on the loo and I can have a bath etc without having to wait an hour Angry

burnyburny · 15/06/2019 23:46

I saw a flat on Right Move recently which had an ensuite shower room - a shower and sink, but no toilet?

It was a beautiful flat and would have been perfect for mr son and I, but as he spends 30 mins on the toilet at least twice a day. I thought it was such a waste!

Violetroselily · 16/06/2019 14:20

I grew up in a 1930s semi in North London and we had this

Hecateh · 16/06/2019 15:11

1950s detached bungalow in Yorkshire was like that.

I knocked the 2 rooms together and made a much bigger bathroom but it didn't worry me

Schnitzelvonkrumb · 16/06/2019 15:25

When i was akud in the 1980s/90s a few friends houses (mainly 1930s houses) had separate toilet and then bath/sink in the bathroom. Its only as ive got older that i think if you're going to separate them why would the bath not just be on its own? And then have the sink for handwashing? In our present house when we moved in there was a separate toilet and then a bathroom including a toilet next door. We have redone both but put a tiny basin in the toilet only room.

BillyAndTheSillies · 16/06/2019 15:29

The house I grew up in in Essex has this lay out. My parents still live there. They like it because it is their only toilet in the house and it is handy if someone is in the bath or the shower, someone can still use the toilet.
If someone was in the bathroom we'd just wash our hands downstairs. It never seemed strange. A few friends on roads nearby had the same. Edwardian houses.

Toooldtobearsed2 · 16/06/2019 15:35

When i was young we lived in an upstairs flat.
The toilet (no hand basin) was in the back yard. The bath was in the kitchen, under the worktop, and the 'basin' doubled as a sink😂

We moved to a house when I was in my teens and we had bath and basin in one room and loo in the other. Positive luxury 😁
Nd

stucknoue · 16/06/2019 15:38

It was common in London too when I was a kid, by the 80's people were knocking them through and trying to squeeze in a separate shower so if you are under 40 or so you may not have seen many

wellhonestly · 16/06/2019 15:42

Edinburgh tenement flat, not done up since the 1920s, had separate loo from bath-and-sink. I had to instal a tiny basin in the loo, I thought it was minging otherwise! Separate bath and toilet was great, but not at the expense of washing your hands ...

LarryGreysonsDoor · 16/06/2019 15:49

Not unusual at all. I’ve never lived in a house like that but know lots of people who have that set up.

Neet90 · 26/06/2019 23:46

Our house was like that. We added a toilet into the bathroom and got a sink added to the toilet, until then we had to have alcohol gen In the wc. In effect we now have 2 toilets next door to each other but when more than 1 of you needs a wee it's handy.

WineIsMyCarb · 26/06/2019 23:49

That was how our current house was configured when we moved in (2012, 30s semi in Bristol).
We knocked through to make a family bathroom.
Apparently it's how most houses are in New Zealand too, only with a sink in the loo room

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