In my hometown, I frequently spot real estate ads for older, often historic houses with four, five or even six bedrooms, but only one bathroom. Even for houses built in the decade after World War II, it was still common to houses to have four or more bedrooms, but just one bathroom. While house-hunting in Cleveland about four years ago, I was taken through some rather large houses built just after WWII, with three or four bedrooms, but one tiny bathroom barely big enough to fit one person.
How did the families of the time – much larger than those today – cope with having just one bathroom for so many people? Why didn’t homebuilders of the era build houses with two or more bathrooms? Considering that even tarter houses and mobile homes today have two or more bathrooms, it couldn’t have been that expensive for middle and upper-end houses of the not-too-distant past.
My grandparents didn’t even have inside plumbing of any kind until my uncle installed an automatic well pump and ran a pipe into the kitchen. They never had an inside bathroom of any kind.
The basic answer is, you don’t miss what you never had. As you looked through older houses, I’m sure you were also surprised by their lack of closet space and electrical outlets.
People didn’t bathe as often; the bathroom was simply a place to do your business and get out. If someone else was in there, you waited for your turn.
Plumbing was expensive and time consuming to install and maintain. Builders only put in one bathroom because that’s all buyers expected.
The subdivision I live in was built in the 1950s. I don’t think any house here (before remodeling) had more than 1 1/2 bathrooms. For that matter, my wife’s father built the house she grew up in in the 1950s. He only put in 1 1/2 bathrooms.
Wives and teenaged daughters applied makeup at a vanity in thier bedrooms for starters. It wasn’t unusual for my mom or sister to wash thier hair in the kitchen sink. Men and women bathed much less often. Showering every day is a modern (And largely American) convention. Young kids of either sex used the potty while dad shaved, or while mom took a bath, and older kids could still squeeze in with the same sex parent or siblings. Also 2-3 boys can urinate simultainiously…what, you never heard of a “pissing contest?”
Maybe that’s wmy my mom washes her hair in the kitchen sink to this day, even thougu the hosue where they now live has no shortage of bathrooms. A typical conversation when I go home to visit …
Me (getting ready to take a shower): “Hey, where’s the shampoo?”
Mom: “Oh, it’s in the kitchen, below the sink.”
Me: ???
We had a family of 7 and the shower was in the basement. The bathroom was a toilet, sink, and medicine cabinet. You waited if you needed to use the toilet. Hair washing was in the kitchen sink with the sprayer or in the shower. People did their grooming in the bedrooms. Shaving and dental care was in the bathroom. Though many houses were like ours many had the bathtub in the bathroom. You took your bath when it was your turn, so you might have to bath hours before you dressed for an event and stay clean.
Go back a bit earlier and the out house was for the men and kids to use. the women and babies got to use the bathroom instead of the outhouse. Water closet is a term for bathroom, and that was because it often was a converted closet or store room.
My wife is from a fairly large family (5 people). In their house the only time one person was allowed to be in the bathroom and have it off limits to others was during #2. Everything else was fair game. Daughter is showering and son has to brush his teeth, pee, wash his face at the sink… it’s all good (opaque shower curtain). Mom’s peeing and one of the kids has to use the sink? C’mon in.
Consequently, she (and I by coincidence) has few hangups about nudity/private time matters.
I grew up in a family of seven, with extra cousins often staying for extended visits. We always had large old homes with 4-6 bedrooms and either 1 or 1 1/2 baths. It wasn’t that big of a deal. You learned to sort of schedule your baths (small kids bathed first before bedtime, older kids later, mom & dad in the morning). If you needed to use the toilet you waited your turn if there was a line. People usually got in and got out. You could have a few kids at a time brushing their teeth in the morning. In large families you learn to share and you learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
There were four kids in our family with one bathroom. When we visited our grandmother on vacation, there would be 7-8 kids and 4 adults in a house with one bathroom for two weeks. Generally kids bathed at night, adults in the morning, and people were expected to make it snappy and not to use all the hot water. Use all the hot water and you’re last in line next time around, that’s for sure. Little kids were basically allowed to use the toilet whenever they needed, regardless of whether anyone else was using the tub or sink. Up to a certain age, there was a lot of kids sharing baths. There were a lot of kids washing hands and brushing teeth at the same time, beyond bath-sharing age.
There was hairwashing in the kitchen sink as others mentioned. And it was not unusual to hear the sound of someone pounding on the bathroom door or the shouts of “hurry UP!” or “I REALLY have to go!”, to get a less-urgent occupant to relinquish the bathroom.
We were friends with a family that had 12 kids and one bathroom. Basically they did the same thing we did, only more so.
Lady Dopers of a certain age will remember the 1956 book Fifteen by Beverly Cleary. Jane is getting ready for her big date with her crush Stan, so she washes her hair. Her mother remarks, “I thought you washed your hair day before yesterday.”
That always puzzled the hell out of me until I learned that most women in the '50s and earlier washed their hair once or twice a week. My aunt went to the salon once a week to have her hair washed. TWO days about kills me.
Yeah, that’s another thing… I don’t remember handheld “gun-style” hairdryers being popular until the mid-seventies. Up until then, women really didn’t wash their hair daily as a matter of course because of the production of drying it with a bonnet dryer.
My mom grew up as one of thirteen children in a three-bedroom, 1.5 bath house. It wasn’t quite as crowded as it sounds - the eldest two were married before the youngest two (including my mom) were born, and the boys all went to boarding school for high school, so the whole gang wasn’t around except for the occasional holiday. Apparently it still led to a lot of bathroom humor from the frustrated people waiting on the other side of the door.
I’m the youngest of 4 boys and grew up in a one bathroom house.
If you were in the bath tub (no shower), you could expect that someone was going to come in to use the other facilities. My mother is the only one that got any bathroom privacy.
My brothers handled most of my toilet training - I have some pretty vivid memories of all four of us standing around the toilet all whizzing at the same time. I’m sure my mother was thrilled to death with that.
This would also have been in the days before pH balanced shampoos. For the first day or two after washing, you couldn’t do a damn thing with your hair. By the third or fourth day, the natural oils started to come back.
Me too. My hair lady has four clients (older women) who come in every Friday for a shampoo and set. They go all week without shampooing. I think gray hair is more dry. Maybe that helps.
We used to DREAM about having a lake. All we had was a puddle alongside the road down by the mill, and the mill owner charged us sixpence each, 2 shillings on Sunday.
I’m 23 and basically was raised as an only child (3 half-siblings 13-19 yrs old, never lived with sis and brothers moved out by the time I was 5). We only one bathroom and whenever I had a male friend over my mother made us take baths together “so we wouldn’t tie up the bathroom”. Until 4th grade I didn’t really have any sense of modesty (family albums have the pictures to prove it :o ). Larger families and smaller homes were one reason why boys were lest modest in the past. Hell 40, 50 years ago boys weren’t even allowed to wear swimsuits at many schools or the YMCA.