Too many redundant bathrooms? Old houses had one! (bathtub, conversion, converting)

[Siouxlander]

What is it with people and televisions?! Every time I watch a design show they make a big deal out of the built in TV's, etc... EVEN IN THE BATHROOM (or all twelve of them, as the case may be)!!! If you can't go five minutes without a TV you have an addiction! lol

[j33]

hehe. No kidding. I have my own place and have always had only one television. Growing up there were six people in my family and we had, guess what? one television. I don't get it.

After I moved out though over 15 years ago, my parents got a small television for the bedroom, against the wishes of my mother would would prefer it was not there.

[al_roethlisberger]

I know this is a reaaaaaly old thread, but it piqued my interest as this topic does seem to come up both in "old house" circles who wonder how/why old homes had so few bathrooms, and also amongst those that wonder why new McMansions seems to have an overabundance of baths and "powder-rooms".

When I was a kid up until I was about 10 years old and we had our first "luxurious" house(== new ), and I'm not very old, I always lived in homes that had one bath. My grandparents, both having rather nice middle-class homes built in the 1950s did however have two baths. One had a very diminutive "master bath", the other having a sort of "utility" bathroom in the basement that was ostensibly my grandfather's.

But the point is that until the early 80s when we moved to Houston and we had our first house with a "half bath" on the first floor, I always thought that having any "spare" bath facilities at all was pretty darned luxurious! Heck, just having a master bath was quite impressive to me.

Many older homes only had one bath due to cost, and the the novelty as well. As pointed out earlier in the thread, it wasn't really all that long ago that homes didn't have indoor plumbing at all, much less a real bathroom. So initially the adoption of the new technology was such that even having ONE indoor room dedicated to bathroom activities was something of a luxury.

My parent's ca 1925 bungalow, rather largish at around 2500 sqft, also only had one bath which they only updated to a second bath about 15 years ago for my brother and sister.

Before moving to NC, we lived in a ca 1940 post-war house with about 950sqft and one bath for all 5 of us(3 kids). It was tight, but fortunately at that time the kiddos were small and we could manage. But we knew once they got older and wanted their privacy, it wasn't going to work out so well

So I agree with many of the previous posts, that if one has a family and can afford to have at least two baths, that's the way to go. It just gets too hectic with kids hogging the bathroom, everyone getting ready for work, school, church, you name it!

But I also see a reasonable balance, where it just becomes more work and inconvenience to have too many baths. Even if one is wealthy enough to have a housekeeper, it is still extra expense to have them cleaned and "stocked" if they aren't really needed. In those cases, just like the example above about televisions in every room, I have to suspect it more about status and bragging rights. When a house has as many, or in some cases several MORE bathrooms than bedrooms, I'm hard pressed to believe that is really necessary... unless one is perhaps running a boarding house

Now we've got a home built in 1929 with three baths, which honestly is something of a rarity in a house of this vintage unless a "mansion", which ours is not. One of the baths is in the basement and was for the maid's quarters, but is still fully functional. But even without that basement bath, which rarely gets used, we are so thankful for having a full bath on the first and second floors. We may not have a true master bath, but we have a direct door into the first floor bath as part of the master bedroom, and honestly that has worked out just fine.

So again, I think there is reasonable justification for a full bath per full occupied story(not just a single walk up bedroom perhaps, unless the master), and maybe for homes with a master bedroom with dedicated bath, that floor could benefit from a half bath. But beyond that, it seems superfluous and showboating to have more than that.

So for the average full 2 story house, 2-2.5 baths would seem completely adequate to me.

Oh and BTW, I love houses that have jack-and-jill walkthrough baths between kid's bedrooms. Kids seem to think it is the coolest thing, and it seems to work out well.

Al

[Donn2390]

Originally Posted by Racelady88

They used to use closet space as a means of figuring out your taxes. Less closet space = lower taxes. People used wooden wardrobes. Lots of the big older homes here have hidden closets behind the walls.

The reason early homes didn't have closets was because people didn't have clothes..!
Today everyone needs a walk-in closet to house their 50 business suits, 200 pairs of shoes, etc. In the early 1900's, people had very fewer clothes..

[harry chickpea]

About the lack of bathrooms in older homes... Apparently a lot of folks here have never heard of thunder jugs, or washbasins and pitchers. In some houses, every bedroom had a set. Sponge baths were a lot more common back then. It does get amusing sometimes when a young person will trot out a thunder jug and think it was used for something else.

[windtimber]

I live in a big old house - early 20th Century - with 5 bedrooms and a "dormitory" - big room with several beds - in the basement. Through appropriate renovation we've got 2 3/4 baths [showers only], 2 full baths [tub & shower], and a toilet and sink in the laundry room.

At one time a prior owner's family of 8 kids and 2 parents lived here with a 1/2 bath in the basement and a full bath on 2nd floor.

Being able to now use the pot when I want without having to wait for someone else to clear out is one of the luxuries of the 21st Century I particularly enjoy!

[al_roethlisberger]

Originally Posted by Donn2390

The reason early homes didn't have closets was because people didn't have clothes..!
Today everyone needs a walk-in closet to house their 50 business suits, 200 pairs of shoes, etc. In the early 1900's, people had very fewer clothes..

Well, as pointed out in an earlier post, it is also true that some areas taxed houses by the number of "rooms" and a closet counted as a "room". So this led to the proliferation of bedrooms without closets and lingering use of wardrobes being used in their place. I think this type of taxation waned by the end of the 19th century though.

Al

[Chango]

Originally Posted by Need_affordable_home

Anyone notice that most houses in the early 1900s had just a single bathroom? Some of the very big ones may have 1.5 or 2 bathrooms, occasionally even 3! Houses today often have 3, 4, 5 or more bathrooms! The expensive luxury houses have so many bathrooms its ridiculous! They often have more bathrooms than bedrooms! Who needs a 6 bedroom house with 8 full bathrooms and 3 half bathrooms? Even our 4 bedroom house has 5 bathrooms(well it had 4 before dad added a 5th one only because HOA had stupid rules about adding another bedroom) We never use all the bathrooms at the same time! Our house really needs only 2 or 3 bathrooms!

Did people like sharing a bathroom in the past or was it expensive to make a bathroom? Most 3, 4, 5 bedroom houses long ago had just a single bathroom, in fact many of those with more than 1 bathroom were recent additions, they origionally had just one!

An indoor bathroom was a new thing back then, and they were happy to even have one. No one by the super rich thought it was necessary to have any more.

Who ever thought about having two theatre rooms today? maybe in a hundred years people will wonder why we didn't put 3 or 4 in our houses

[Ohiogirl81]

I'd love to have a second loo. Mostly because I shudder to think about the bathroom being out of commission and us waiting ... and waiting ... for the plumber to show up. But also, I'm sick of the spouse knocking timidly on the door when I'm in the shower: "Honey? I have to go ... " Argh. It never fails. His bladder must not be able to take the sound of the shower ...

Maybe I should just get him a chamber pot. Heh.

But I grew up in a house with four people and one bathroom. I don't recall it was ever much of an issue, not even when my sister and I were both hygiene-crazed teenagers.

[harry chickpea]

You mean he doesn't have the proverbial pot to p in?

The stuff is valuable around a garden.