Open plan bathroom???

[Farrar]

I feel like this is a thing the hive will enjoy dissecting (cough... mocking... cough).

Is This Open Concept Bathroom a Dream or a Nightmare?

[Farrar]

The moment I saw this, I was like, well, when my kids were little, this would have been brilliant. But now that they're teens... um...

I assumed before I clicked it that it was for a primary bedroom with an attached bathroom. But nope. They went all in. First floor. For all to see.

[KSera]

What??! That is not what I expected to see. I was thinking of the recent thread here where someone was buying a house with no door between the master bedroom and the bathroom and was going to put up a curtain. 

[mommyoffive]

3 minutes ago, Farrar said:

The moment I saw this, I was like, well, when my kids were little, this would have been brilliant. But now that they're teens... um...

I assumed before I clicked it that it was for a primary bedroom with an attached bathroom. But nope. They went all in. First floor. For all to see.

Yeah it would have been handy when they were little to keep on eye on them while going or potty training.  But then I wouldn't have one place I could get away either.   I can see it being for someone, but not me.  Someone living on their own?  Someone that is just relaxed and open?  

[gardenmom5]

Just . . . no.    (and wood floors in a bathroom with a shower?  really?)

[YaelAldrich]

We were once shown an apartment in Tokyo with a bathroom similar to this. It had a clear glass divider with a clear door between the main part of the house and the bathroom. Between that and the completely open spiral staircase to the second floor it was a hard no from my husband and me, parents of two children under five.

[TechWife]

No.

[gardenmom5]

Ha - I found it.  It sold for $740K.  the room adjacent to the bathroom has the front door to the outside.  What were they thinking?

302 South St Unit 2, Boston, MA 02130 - realtor.com®

 

eta: just because you can spend some money on materials - doesn't mean you can make good design choices . . . . 

 

Edited October 10, 2021 by gardenmom5

[YaelAldrich]

2 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

Ha - I found it.  It sold for $740K.  the room adjacent to the bathroom has the front door to the outside.  What were they thinking?

302 South St Unit 2, Boston, MA 02130 - realtor.com®

 

eta: just because you can spend some money on materials - doesn't mean you can make good design choices . . . . 

 

I'm in Boston and when we were house hunting I saw a place with a toilet in the corner of the basement. No walls, no sink. Just a toilet. Yes, the toilet worked. That house sold for well over a million dollars.

Gotta love you Boston!

 

[gardenmom5]

2 minutes ago, YaelAldrich said:

I'm in Boston and when we were house hunting I saw a place with a toilet in the corner of the basement. No walls, no sink. Just a toilet. Yes, the toilet worked. That house sold for well over a million dollars.

Gotta love you Boston!

 

was the basement finished?  or were things just roughed in?  (I can imagine a toilet in a seldom used basement, and then only for storage, and maybe laundry/workshop.

And on my street,- I've seen houses sell for close to $1m - and be torn down.

Edited October 10, 2021 by gardenmom5

[YaelAldrich]

3 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

was the basement finished?  or were things just roughed in?  (I can imagine a toilet in a seldom used basement, and then only for storage, and maybe laundry/workshop.

Semi finished. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were built between 1900-1930 so the furnace and hot water heater are there along with walls for rooms but not necessarily finished-finished.

This particular toilet was up on a platform to boot. 

Edited October 10, 2021 by YaelAldrich

[KungFuPanda]

I like the idea of a full bathroom as part of a bedroom . . . it would be great for accessibility of someone who needed regular care.  I'd still want a door on the larger room itself.  They need pocket doors or something.

[PeterPan]

Well my ds saw the article and wanted the link to share with his conversation SLP. So I guess the design is doing what it's supposed to, generating conversation. 😂 I assume the buyer will convert it into a proper bathroom. They definitely made no effort to do it as well as it COULD have been done. It's more like they didn't want to admit their junk layout so they just threw it in. 

[Farrar]

23 minutes ago, YaelAldrich said:

I'm in Boston and when we were house hunting I saw a place with a toilet in the corner of the basement. No walls, no sink. Just a toilet. Yes, the toilet worked. That house sold for well over a million dollars.

Gotta love you Boston!

 

My friend's house in DC was like that. She added a bathroom around it.

[Melissa in Australia]

my neighbour has floor to celling window in his bathroom. it faces his driveway. so anyone going past just at the right time can see him in the shower if they glance down the driveway

[Tanaqui]

Basement toilets aren't toilets. I mean, they ARE, but they're not for you to poop on unless you're really hard up.

You find them in older homes in case of *sewer backups*. The idea is that if the sewer clogs, the gross sewer water goes into the basement toilet and hopefully stays there, but if it doesn't it at least only floods part of your unfinished basement rather than spewing out the drain of your kitchen sink or whatever.

Because the basement toilet is really meant for emergency overflow situations, there's no need to make it a functional bathroom.

[Corraleno]

I originally thought the bathroom was right inside the front door, but looking at the front of the house in the link that Gardenmom posted, you can see that it's actually on the 2nd floor and the door opens onto the balcony deck. So at least it's part of the primary suite, and there is a door that closes off the bedroom and bathroom from the hallway. The other really weird thing is that, of the two rooms in the front of the house, they turned the nice big room into the bathroom and left the much smaller room for the bedroom. The smaller room actually has some kind of pipe in it, and if you put the bed on the only wall without a door or low windows, then the pipe prevents you from pushing the bed all the way to the wall AND you probably can't open the door. It would have made so much more sense to put the bathroom in the smaller room, add a wall, and use the big room for the primary bedroom.

But really the whole remodel in that house is just a disaster — the kitchen is not well laid out and the huge stone column and walled-up passageway are just bizarre. They basically stripped out all of the original character and what they added was dysfunctional and poorly planned. And looking at the sales history, they lost a HUGE amount of money — looks like they bought it in April for 849K, "fixed it up," and then sold it for $741K. And now the new owners will likely have to spend a ton of money putting everything back the way it was!

[Laura Corin]

I'm the walk-naked-round-her-house woman, and that's definitely a no. Smells? Even with a fan they would spread. I can imagine the toilet would only be used for night-time pees.

[Carrie12345]

We are very big on bathroom privacy over here. The younger boys will sometimes try to brush their teeth together, but even that doesn’t usually go well. Multiple people have me second guessing my choice to put just one sink in my new en-suite, but why should I clean a second sink when we’re one-at-a-time people???

Anyway... what happens with “my husband spends an hour pooping” couples in such an arrangement? And menstruation is normal and all, but... 

My bathroom is LITERALLY the only place I’m ever alone, and thank goodness for it.

[HomeAgain]

No thank you. I don't mind open concept bathrooms where it's still a ROOM, but it's also a shower and has all the elements open in the room, but I would never feel comfortable using the facilities in the picture you shared.

[Ausmumof3]

I would rather use a long drop on the Nullarbor and that’s saying something.

[Danae]

When I was little one of my aunts and uncles lived on a farm in a 100 year old farm house and the upstairs toilet was in one of the bedrooms.  No divider at all, just a toilet against one of the walls.  It’s one of the only things I remember about visiting those cousins.

[ktgrok]

When I was first looking at houses and foor plans I posted on here about seeing plans with no door/wall separating the master bedroom and bathroom/toilet area! I could NOT wrap my head around it. Still can't. Heck, just from a HYGIENE point of view it is gross! The one we are buying has an enclosed watercloset separate from the rest of the bathroom and my mom went on and on about how much more hygenic it is - which I hadn't thought about until she said it. Once she said it I realized she was right - no toilet spray onto bathroom counters! 

Beyond that, the photos in that article are basically a living nightmare. I am one of those people with recurring dreams of having to use a toilet and none of the stalls have walls/doors. so yeah, the stuff of nightmares. 

Let some things be private, for crying out loud. 

[Katy]

When we lived in Oklahoma we went to an open house sort of like this. It was on a cliff overlooking ORU.  There was a bathroom that was strangely open not only to the master, but the *ahem* throne was on a raised platform and a sort of bridge over the swim-out pool. With a wall of glass over the pool.  The whole thing had this feel like anyone in the pool would have a prime view of anyone using thar toilet. 

Also, none of the house had been updated since it was built, probably in the 1970’s, but for some reason they’d painted the cedar inside the sauna with stinky white oil-based paint.  I’ve since wondered if it was to hide murder or mold. 

[ktgrok]

5 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I originally thought the bathroom was right inside the front door, but looking at the front of the house in the link that Gardenmom posted, you can see that it's actually on the 2nd floor and the door opens onto the balcony deck. So at least it's part of the primary suite, and there is a door that closes off the bedroom and bathroom from the hallway. The other really weird thing is that, of the two rooms in the front of the house, they turned the nice big room into the bathroom and left the much smaller room for the bedroom. The smaller room actually has some kind of pipe in it, and if you put the bed on the only wall without a door or low windows, then the pipe prevents you from pushing the bed all the way to the wall AND you probably can't open the door. It would have made so much more sense to put the bathroom in the smaller room, add a wall, and use the big room for the primary bedroom.

But really the whole remodel in that house is just a disaster — the kitchen is not well laid out and the huge stone column and walled-up passageway are just bizarre. They basically stripped out all of the original character and what they added was dysfunctional and poorly planned. And looking at the sales history, they lost a HUGE amount of money — looks like they bought it in April for 849K, "fixed it up," and then sold it for $741K. And now the new owners will likely have to spend a ton of money putting everything back the way it was!

Yeah, that walled up archway bothers me as much as the bathroom without doors, which is saying a lot. I'd refuse to use that bathroom, but that walled off archway makes me twitchy. It gives me vibes ala The Cask of Amontillado. 

52 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I would rather use a long drop on the Nullarbor and that’s saying something.

Off to google...again, lol. 

[MEmama]

6 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

Basement toilets aren't toilets. I mean, they ARE, but they're not for you to poop on unless you're really hard up.

You find them in older homes in case of *sewer backups*. The idea is that if the sewer clogs, the gross sewer water goes into the basement toilet and hopefully stays there, but if it doesn't it at least only floods part of your unfinished basement rather than spewing out the drain of your kitchen sink or whatever.

Because the basement toilet is really meant for emergency overflow situations, there's no need to make it a functional bathroom.

That’s interesting. When we lived in Ohio we looked at several houses with basement toilets (no bathroom, unfinished basements in older Craftsman and Victorian homes) and thought them very strange. Good to know there’s a reason for them! 

[KungFuPanda]

6 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

Basement toilets aren't toilets. I mean, they ARE, but they're not for you to poop on unless you're really hard up.

You find them in older homes in case of *sewer backups*. The idea is that if the sewer clogs, the gross sewer water goes into the basement toilet and hopefully stays there, but if it doesn't it at least only floods part of your unfinished basement rather than spewing out the drain of your kitchen sink or whatever.

Because the basement toilet is really meant for emergency overflow situations, there's no need to make it a functional bathroom.

Unless they’re built on a platform, then they’ve put in pumps to make it a regular toilet and the platform hides the machinery. 

[Wildcat]

41 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I am one of those people with recurring dreams of having to use a toilet and none of the stalls have walls/doors. so yeah, the stuff of nightmares.

You too??!  I thought I was the only one. LOL.

[Wildcat]

33 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Off to google...again, lol. 

If you figure it out, report back. The best I came up with would be "I'd rather take a long walk off a short pier" but more dangerous/deadly. 

[maize]

I was just in a house this week that had a bathroom with a glass door. It wasn't attached to a bedroom either. If you glanced in while walking past you were looking straight at the toilet.

Fortunately that wasn't the only bathroom in the house...and I didn't see anyone use it.

[Scarlett]

It is a beautiful house from the outside. But man…….that kitchen. Ugh.  It makes me dizzy. 

I  love the stair well….. I am sure it is not easy to get furniture up or down but it is so neat.  

[history-fan]

Pass!   We had a neighbor that remodeled their 1960’s ranch house and put the bathtub in the bedroom all open. It’s right by the door between the window and the bed. They also had oak floors- wonder how it’s working for the new owners?  I prefer my privacy.

[Mom_to3]

Thanks for the good laugh! I am in a bad mood today, and this cheered me up.

[Tap]

Can you imagine the guests? It may be something the homeowner is fine with but what if they have anyone over who needs to use the restroom? Absolutely bazaar. I am guessing that he new owner took the real-estate company up on thier offer to build a wall and door for them. 

[Annie G]

This week I read about some female country singer who remodeled her main bath so they could have two toilets side by side- like RIGHT next to each other- so she and her dh can ‘go’ at the same time. Is the open concept bathroom more weird, or side by side toilets more weird? I can’t  decide. 

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, Wildcat said:

You too??!  I thought I was the only one. LOL.

Nope, it is common. Supposedly it represents a fear of private information being made public, or some such thing. 

2 minutes ago, Annie G said:

This week I read about some female country singer who remodeled her main bath so they could have two toilets side by side- like RIGHT next to each other- so she and her dh can ‘go’ at the same time. Is the open concept bathroom more weird, or side by side toilets more weird? I can’t  decide. 

We once saw a house with toilets across from each other - so you could face each other and talk while going together. It was SO weird. Needless to say, we did not put an offer on that house!

[RootAnn]

So, the first house DH & I bought was a "country" house. None of the upstairs bedrooms had doors. They were just all finished wooden openings. The main bathroom also had no door, but the other two bathrooms in the house did, thank goodness. Since we were basically newlyweds, it was only kinda weird. We made our own beaded doorway to the bathroom. After our first was born, we redid the wooden openings to the bedrooms & installed doors. No room to do that with the main bathroom (it would have had to be a pocket door) & we moved before we had more kids.

I've been to one swanky hotel that had an all-clear glass shower surround & no one but DH would use it. The lock on the bathroom door was broken, too. It was a bad combo.

I am super confused that basement toilets aren't supposed to be used?? I have three kids who use ours daily (we built a room around it & it has Jack & Jill doors), and a friend of ours had one of these 'open concept' ones in her basement. That was the toilet for whomever had the bedroom in the basement. I think there was one in the house my mom grew up with, but I don't remember the particulars (platform or not). They had only other bathroom & 6 kids, so I assume it got regular use.

Maybe the prohibition is regional?

[Tanaqui]

It's not a prohibition, per se - it's just that this isn't why they're there, so most of those old school basement toilets in unfinished basements do not have sinks, walls, a place to put toilet paper, or anything useful - and because the basement is unfinished, there's no bedroom or anything down there, no reason to be there unless you're handling the laundry or dealing with the boiler or the water heater or wrangling storage.

Nobody's gonna pop down to the unfinished basement to use the toilet and then walk 15 feet to rinse in the laundry sink when they could just not do that.

[Farrar]

59 minutes ago, Tanaqui said:

It's not a prohibition, per se - it's just that this isn't why they're there, so most of those old school basement toilets in unfinished basements do not have sinks, walls, a place to put toilet paper, or anything useful - and because the basement is unfinished, there's no bedroom or anything down there, no reason to be there unless you're handling the laundry or dealing with the boiler or the water heater or wrangling storage.

Nobody's gonna pop down to the unfinished basement to use the toilet and then walk 15 feet to rinse in the laundry sink when they could just not do that.

Around us, the basements are mostly English and people rent them as apartments. In my friend's case, the basement was half finished - it had been a sort of work space with tools and a sort of den. Honestly, I hate to get gendered about it, but it was an old man cave. There was a sink, just a utility sink, next to the toilet.

Our basement bathroom was a full bathroom. We actually just finished it after leaving it sitting for years.

I'm not sure that the toilets down in the basements in these cases were somehow for sewer overflow. I mean, maybe. But it doesn't seem that way from the set up. Before we bought out house, the bathroom was clearly in use. It was just disgusting.

[Terabith]

When we lived in San Antonio, our house had one "open concept" bathroom off of the master bedroom.  It was a huge bathroom, with two walk in closets, a shower/ tub that was slightly larger than standard size but not jacuzzi size, and two sinks in a long counter.  There was no door from the master bedroom into this part, but the toilet was in a little room of its own with a door.  I thought I'd hate it, but really, it was fine, but I could always close the door to the bedroom. The only person who would be in the bedroom or to see me in the shower/ tub was my husband or then toddler aged children.  So I was prepared to say I was okay with open concept bathrooms, until I saw the pictures.  

No.  Just no.  Shudder.  

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, Terabith said:

When we lived in San Antonio, our house had one "open concept" bathroom off of the master bedroom.  It was a huge bathroom, with two walk in closets, a shower/ tub that was slightly larger than standard size but not jacuzzi size, and two sinks in a long counter.  There was no door from the master bedroom into this part, but the toilet was in a little room of its own with a door.  I thought I'd hate it, but really, it was fine, but I could always close the door to the bedroom. The only person who would be in the bedroom or to see me in the shower/ tub was my husband or then toddler aged children.  So I was prepared to say I was okay with open concept bathrooms, until I saw the pictures.  

No.  Just no.  Shudder.  

Yeah, I don't have an issue with what you described EXCEPT that the noise and light of a person getting ready in the morning or getting ready for bed at night will likely disturb a sleeping spouse. That's what happens in hotels set up with the sinks outside the bathroom. I hate that. I figure if DH gets up to shower that is my time to snooze a bit more. I'm really glad ours has a door! 

But open closet toilet is a whole other level! (and again, someone turning on the light is going to wake up a spouse...but so will other things happening..ick)

[Farrar]

5 minutes ago, Terabith said:

When we lived in San Antonio, our house had one "open concept" bathroom off of the master bedroom.  It was a huge bathroom, with two walk in closets, a shower/ tub that was slightly larger than standard size but not jacuzzi size, and two sinks in a long counter.  There was no door from the master bedroom into this part, but the toilet was in a little room of its own with a door.  I thought I'd hate it, but really, it was fine, but I could always close the door to the bedroom. The only person who would be in the bedroom or to see me in the shower/ tub was my husband or then toddler aged children.  So I was prepared to say I was okay with open concept bathrooms, until I saw the pictures.  

No.  Just no.  Shudder.  

What you described is what I pictured until I opened the article.

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

Yeah, I don't have an issue with what you described EXCEPT that the noise and light of a person getting ready in the morning or getting ready for bed at night will likely disturb a sleeping spouse. That's what happens in hotels set up with the sinks outside the bathroom. I hate that. I figure if DH gets up to shower that is my time to snooze a bit more. I'm really glad ours has a door! 

But open closet toilet is a whole other level! (and again, someone turning on the light is going to wake up a spouse...but so will other things happening..ick)

Well, at the time we lived in that house, we had a baby/ toddler who slept in our bed and who was a horrific sleeper anyway.  And another toddler in a different room.  So our sleep was already so disrupted that I don't think we would have even noticed noise from the sink bothering us.  (My youngest kid slept so little and woke up so much that my husband actually got so sleep deprived that he had hallucinations so severe that he lost contact with reality for about a week.  At that point we sent him to sleep in the guest bedroom.)  

It probably also helps that we are shower at night people, so the only noise besides flushing toilets was shaving/ tooth brushing.  The master bedroom was gigantic, too, and we angled our bed so very little light from the bathroom was visible.  I actually loved that house and would live in it again in a heartbeat.  

There was also another, completely traditional bathroom, on the hallway with the other two bedrooms.  

[WildflowerMom]

It would certainly work well as a birth control method.   If I had to regularly watch dh poop, I'd never touch him again.  🤷🏻‍♀️

[history-fan]

The toilet in the basement alone or with washer dryer seemed to be common in older houses with unfinished basements. I was told that the basements were plumbed for a bathroom that could be finished later and some people wanted the toilet installed so that the plumber wouldn’t have to come back and that it was available to use.

[Terabith]

My oldest's high school has a toilet in a stair well.  Like a landing.  I don't think it's hooked up to plumbing, but it's been there for years.  It's like someone got tired carrying it to the next floor and said, "Eh, close enough."

[catz]

There was a $$$ condo listed here recently with a random toilet in the living space.  So weird and hard no!

I live in an old house and have lived in other old houses.  I don't think it's actually all that weird to have a toilet in a unfinished or semi finished basement.  Both my old houses had these semi finished grungy bathrooms in their basement.  And I don't even want to admit to what ridiculous amount of money our 1915 - 2100 sq ft 3 bedroom is worth at this point.  

Oh and in other weird old house bathroom news, our current house had a stairway into our main floor bathroom!  It was like a back stairway with a door at the top that met with the front stairs half way.  SO WEIRD.  We had that bathroom gutted and it is a perfectly normal and adorable half bath now with hex tiles.

Edited October 10, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[kbutton]

16 hours ago, Danae said:

When I was little one of my aunts and uncles lived on a farm in a 100 year old farm house and the upstairs toilet was in one of the bedrooms.  No divider at all, just a toilet against one of the walls.  It’s one of the only things I remember about visiting those cousins.

Interesting. I was told (on a historical tour) that a lot of older homes had closets with doors, but no door knobs--it was to avoid having the closet taxed as an extra room. I wonder if the lone toilet was something like that, and it was just maintained forward.

11 hours ago, Tanaqui said:

Nobody's gonna pop down to the unfinished basement to use the toilet and then walk 15 feet to rinse in the laundry sink when they could just not do that.

The older home that I knew of that had a toilet in the basement had a little walled off area, but not a solid, permanent wall. It clogged easily and was not raised, so I bet it was for sewer backup. However, this home had a side door on the house where you could walk just a few steps down to the basement or a few steps up to the main floor, and it had a hose hookup right there, IIRC. If it were my house, and the toilet was functional, I would've begged my kids to use it when they were out playing in the yard to avoid them dragging a mess through the house. It was perfect for that scenario. 

[skimomma]

16 hours ago, history-fan said:

The toilet in the basement alone or with washer dryer seemed to be common in older houses with unfinished basements. I was told that the basements were plumbed for a bathroom that could be finished later and some people wanted the toilet installed so that the plumber wouldn’t have to come back and that it was available to use.

Stand alone basement toilets are very common in my area.  Several of my friends have them and there was one in our basement at one point in the past.  In our case, all of these houses were built pre-plumbing (and electricity, for that matter).  When water and sewer were put in, most homeowners could not afford to fully plumb their houses or reconfigure rooms to make traditional bathrooms.  Often the introduction to having indoor plumbing was a single kitchen sink and the easy-to-install basement toilet.  We affectionately call them "thrones" here as they are usually on a small platform.  Seeing as the alternative was outhouses or chamber pots, without sinks, it was not considered odd that there was not a sink nearby.  These houses often held large families so even when proper bathrooms were installed, people kept the thrones as back up.  And many persist today and are used as back-up.  The basements in our area are typically not tall enough to finish so it is rare for one to put proper walls around the throne or make it into a real bathroom but that is not 100% unheard of.  My family does volunteer work for an agency that assists the elderly in our area and we have come across the occasional house that still has a throne as the only toilet.  It creates a special challenge for home health aids.

[bolt.]

Having read "The Help" -- I wonder if some of these stand-alone toilets in undesirable/utility areas of a home might have something to do with the racist desire to provide a separate facility instead of sharing the normal household bathrooms with maids or other workers?