Inspired by this Straight Dope thread (since it has to do with bathrooms, naturally there's bathroom talk, so warning for the sensitive): http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...d.php?t=470587
The OP was wondering why fairly large houses (4, 5 or even more bedrooms) built around mid-century had only one small bathroom for presumably a pretty large family. A lot of subsequent posters weighed in and said things like:
- people didn't bathe/shower or wash hair as often
- they washed hair in the kitchen sink and did grooming in the bedroom
- the bath was a place for doing the necessary, not a "retreat", you did what you had to and got out
- less hung up about privacy, more than one girl or more than one boy would often do what they had to do simultaneously (granted that boys have, shall we say, a certain anatomical advantage for one particular "what they have to do"! )
Now I think about it, they're right about washing hair in the sink and showering less often, I remember doing those once a week, then as my hair and skin got oilier I went to every other day, then daily, and now because of a skin issue I bathe or shower for 10 minutes twice a day, or more if time permits. (I probably don't need to wash the hair as often but as long as I'm in the shower I do so.) As for numbers of bathrooms, I don't see the need for a master bedroom suite with its own bathroom + more bathrooms, but one bath per floor sounds sensible to me (if only because my mom and I live in a small 1-bath house and if any kind of repair work would need to be done to the bath it might be out of commission for a couple of days; and we certainly don't use it as a "retreat", I don't get these people who read books in the bathtub: hel-lo, they'd get wet!).
So what do you do: Do you or your family need the privacy? Can you get by with bathing/showering/shampooing less often?