*Disclaimer: I’m not talking about using the toilet–if you share this experience with your SO, I don’t particularly want to hear about it. *
This is always an issue that comes up on House Hunters. “We’ve got to have double sinks!” “Both of us can’t get in the bathroom to get dressed at the same time!”
Even when I lived in a house/apartment with only one bathroom, I never wanted to get in there to wash, shower, dry my hair, put on my makeup, or anything else with my husband/live-in/boyfriend/etc. I don’t want anyone watching me brush my teeth or shaving my legs. Or putting on makeup. When faced with a one-bathroom situation, I would just get up earlier or later or do makeup at a separate table in a corner of the bedroom or something (with my Clairol makeup mirror), and do the other stuff when I had the bathroom to myself.
Personally, I think being privy to each other’s *toilette *routines is one of the things that kills mystery and romance, but that’s just MHO. I mean, who wants to watch her boyfriend trim his nose hairs?
Anyway, do you share space with your SO at the same time while performing your personal grooming routines?
No, its a marketing tool and can be very effective until one analyzes it as you have. In our culture we are programed to think that more is always better. In this case it doesn’t really make sense and shouldn’t add value to a house except if some moron buys into the idea.
I have a large master bathroom with two sinks and enjoy getting ready with my husband in the morning. We talk about a lot of things and I still have plenty of romance in my life, even though I’ve seen him trim his nose hairs.
We have been married 8years and all sense of privacy has long sense left. Getting ready at the same time is a matter of efficiency. I don’t have time to worry about him seeing me bathe or brush my teeth. He has seen a lot more. Lol
Nope, I’ve never gotten ready in the bathroom at the same time as my husband. He doesn’t even like for me to see him put on deodorant. Plus, he wakes up later than I do, so we don’t tend to fight for the bathroom.
I love showering together. Eventually, when we can afford our own house, we want to have a large shower with at least dual shower heads, and a tub large enough for shared bubble baths.
We don’t much care about the size of our bed room, what our kitchen looks like, or even the layout of our living spaces, but man do we have dreams for our bathroom!
I’ve lived with my wife in both a single sink arrangement and a double sink arrangement. I would never have another master bathroom with a single sink.
A double sink not only lets us attend to our hygiene at the same time but it also allows us to keep products that are specific to our needs separated. I don’t need to be sorting through her cosmetics and creams to find my stuff.
Whenever I’ve had a SO, we’ve generally gotten ready together. Showering, tooth brushing, etc. And it’s always been in relatively small bathrooms with one sink and a small tub. Instead of destroying mystery and romance, it felt like it enforced intimacy; these are the things we did together to be presentable to the world at large. By waking up together, with scruffy face/legs and bedhead, we’d already destroyed the illusion of being perfect for each other.
I’ve never lived with an SO, but have spent quite a bit of time in the same living space. With both my current and past serious boyfriend, we a]both basically only use the bathroom to shit, piss, brush our teeth, and shower, b]don’t have the same work schedule and c]aren’t type who has to shower daily. I don’t take much longer to ‘get ready’ than he does, I don’t wear makeup, and see no reason for separate bathroom areas.
I am divorced but I have always been baffled about what some people consider to be real marriage issues We lived in everything from college dorms with shared bathrooms to a tiny condo to a 3,500 square foot house with 3 large bathrooms. Never once did I think that bathroom space was an issue. It may have been for her but I would need to be a special kind of entitled man-princess to ever think that bathroom real estate was a core problem.
It takes me less than a minute to shave every morning (and I have a heavy beard), less than 2 minutes to brush my teeth, and 5 minutes to take a shower. This is a dead simple problem to solve if you have it at all. Just rotate the resources like the sink if you happen to have the bad luck to need it at the exact same time as your SO. This really shouldn’t be an issue. In the worst case, give the guy priority of what is available and no one is more than 2 minutes from having access to what they need and that is the worst case.
If your experience is different because you have a high-maintenance poodle spouse, dump them and find a better one or just shave in the kitchen sink. Get double spools of toilet paper, one hanging each way, while you are at it.
Our schedules have haven’t often intersected in a way that it would happen. But when they do it’s usually one in the shower and one not. If we’re in the shower together, that means we’re already ready.
My husband isn’t a poodle, he is a man-bear. Shaving for him is a chore so it is only done once every week or two. He saves his entire head and face. If he EVER shaved in the kitchen sink it would be grounds for divorce*. I have enough trouble trying to keep his whiskers contained to the bathroom sink/shower that I think I would go ballistic if his face/body hair was in my kitchen.
Since my wife works from home we don’t get ready at the same time in the morning, but we often get ready for bed at the same time. No worries. A double sink is great, especially for the extra room for our stuff.
As for romance and mystery - when you are in the delivery room when a child is born, seeing her brush her teeth is small beer indeed.
We just take turns. It helps that I put my makeup on in the bedroom, not the bathroom. We have a tiny bathroom but it’s never been the source of any conflict.
We have a tiny master bath - it’s maybe 5’X8’ wall to wall. But we have no need for more than one sink. Out typical routine - he gets up and deals with the dog while I brush my teeth and get into the shower. When I get out of the shower, he gets it, and I take care of drying, combing, deodorizing, and face-lotioning. I don’t do makeup or blow-drying or hair curling, so I don’t need much.
At that point, I step into the bedroom to dress, and he finishes his shower and does drying, combing, deodorizing, etc before coming to the bedroom to dress. So we kinda, sorta overlap, but we’ve never needed a second sink.
We had a large bathroom with 2 sinks at our last place, and if I recall, it just meant a bigger counter to accumulate stuff. The single pedestal sink is much tidier.
Hm, 2 sides to the med cabinet, his side is the left, my side is the right. Counter, his side of the sink is left, his crap sits on the left side of the sink area, mine sits on the right side of the sink area.
How hard is it to look either to the left side of the sink or the right side, and to sort ones crap left or right as appropriate?
I think double sinks are the stupidest idea for spending money with a builder there is. Unless you have an issue like one 6foot6 + guy and a lady in a wheelchair, there is no need for double sinks. And as to getting ready simultaneously, christ on a crutch, take turns. It can’t be so difficult for someone to get up 15 minutes earlier than the partner, or to simply do things at slightly different times. One person can get the damned coffee started and get into the bathroom 10 minutes later.
No, in fact we use separate bathrooms altogether. This may change as our daughter gets older and harder to share a bathroom with, but for now, we believe that separate bathrooms are the key to a happy marriage.
Our master bath doesn’t even have a door. :eek: