Occasionally, I look through “house plan” magazines. I have noticed that quite often, larger houses have these enormous, “living room”-size master bathrooms (along with similarly-sized walk-in closets). This seems a bit silly to me, but hey, what do I know about luxury? Well anyway, how long has this trend been going on, and what exactly is the appeal of a bathroom with enough square-footage to put a grand piano in?
Judging by houses I’ve looked at I’d say it got popular about 15 years ago. My wife used to drag me to model homes for a while, until I started feigning death.
Houses in general started getting a whole lot bigger at that time, with upstairs laundry rooms, home theatres in the finished palatial basement, kitchens large enough to play badminton, etc. All on a piece of land the size of a postage stamp with about 8 inches between your house and your neighbour’s.
They’re still building hundreds of these $600,000 houses near where I live and my wife and I cannot figure out who the hell can afford to buy them.
Oh, and of course they all have exotic hardwood floors, and granite and marble throughout. Weird.
This is Canada, where the banks did not hand out mortgages with no questions asked, but…
Barring outright fraud, my impression was this - people bought houses 20 years ago or more for a small amount (say, $100K). Suddenly they find they can sell the house for $400K, and it’s paid off, so they have $400K to put toward a $600K mortgage. Add in today’s painfully low interest rates, and the older homebuyer will get a McMansion for probably a lower mortgage payment than their original house purchase.
At a certain point, you can’t add rooms - the average family is what, less than 2 kids? How many bedrooms, hobby rooms, rec rooms, etc. do you need with 2 or 3 people in a house. The logical progression is to make the rooms you have moe luxurious. Anyone who grew up with a typical bathroom where the trick was to shoehorn 3 fixtures into the smallest possible room, and 2 people cannot fit in it, will appreciate a large bathroom. If you are the type who enjoys soaking in a warm tub, you will appreciate the modern large jetted tubs. Similarly, anyone who tries to actually use a kitchen will realize that there is never enough counter space. The goal of McMansion is to help satisfy these needs.
As for hardwood floors, granite counters, etc - theoretically more durable and certainly nicer looking than the alternatives. The prestige factor is a bonus.
The trouble is, I think the supply is almost exhausted of trading-up homeowners with a large amount of equity in their old house. All that’s left for customers is the foolish, those with realtve high dual incomes and no foresight. When interest rates begin to rise, even 2 professional incomes may not be enough to pay the mortgage on a $600K house.
A friend bought a house like that. The bathroom was so large that the shower wasn’t near anything, and there was a separate tub in another corner so the shower was really just an open area where the shower head stuck out of the wall and a drain in the floor. She was excited that she’d be able to shower in the wide open area, with no curtain or anything.
My house and its huge master bath were built in 1985. It’s a custom home, planned and re-planned for years by my parents with an architect, and built by several local contractors. They wanted room, and lots of it, and got it.
My dad was one of 12 kids, sharing one outhouse (a two seater, though!) and my mom grew up in a series of cheap apartments with dodgy plumbing. After living in a series of middle-class homes with dinky showers and just enough room to turn around, they opted to build a retirement home with a dream bathroom with a whirlpool tub for 4, a waterfall, a sunken shower with 5 showerheads, two huge closets, and two built-in hampers the size of New Jersey.
The master bedroom-bathroom suite is bigger than the first apartment my wife and I lived in, and we love the room and features. It’s a great party bathroom! 
We’ve got a large master bathroom, and it’s very useful for hectic mornings. My wife and I can both get ready for work without constantly bumping into each other - sure, that can be fun, but doesn’t help for getting to work on time. It wound up larger than originally planned, since we had the builder expand the garage underneath it, but it’s turned out useful.
We’ve also got a walk in closet that’s nice because my wife isn’t constantly moving clothes into/out of the attic as the seasons change. I believe I own 1/8 of the space. Of course, the closet is bigger than the bedroom my brother and I shared for 14+ years growing up.
I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.
As someone who has done major home repairs as part of my job, it’s only theoretical. Granite/other stone certainly can be stained, damaged, or broken. From what I’ve seen, nothing really matches Formica and similar things for durability, ease of maintenance, cost, and hassle of potential replacement. Screw fashion, when/if I design a dream house the kitchen counters are going to be Formica.
Ditto for hardwood floors - yes, they CAN be durable but they can also be damaged - but then, so can any flooring. Flooring always takes a beating. All I can say there is, whatever you use, purchase the highest quality, do your best to take care of it, and just realize that nothing lasts forever.
These threads are always amusing when it comes to discussions of price points. Around these parts, $600k isn’t even in the realm of “expensive” let alone “luxury…”
It’s just really nice to have a lot of space to do your stuff, in any room.
Joe
Buddy of mine has a crazy master bath. The shower has a tile spiral entry so that you never need a shower curtain. There is a huge partially sunken tub, and a widescreen TV mounted so that it can be viewed from the toilet, which for some reason is elevated (like a throne I guess).
In general, anything that costs a lot of money and that only rich people can afford is automatically appealing.
On that note, you’ll see in old stories how carpeting is described as some sort of luxury, while all sorts of old tenements and slums were built with hardwood floors. Now the latter is considered an upgrade while carpets are standard. Only thing that changed is the relative prices.
[Which is not to say there’s no advantage in hardwood, as below.]
Yeah, but the thing about hardwood floors is that when they do take a beating you can always scrape them down and repolish and they’re as good as new. (As an added bonus, you can also change the color of the stain, if you’re sick of the old one.) With most other types of flooring, when they get damaged you’ve got to start all over from scratch.
Abuelita’s flat had a huuuuuuge bathroom with an enoooooormous bathtub, as well as a small bathroom with a shower.
I understand that “the tub is large enough to bathe all four sons together” was a selling point c. 1948.
I’ve just looked at the currency conversion and where I live, you can pay that for a pretty titchy 2 bedroom apartment. Nope, not kidding, it’s very depressing… It’s not even a nice neighbourhood. :mad:
I think the appeal of the “master suite” began when many two-income families had long commutes to work. The idea was the heads of the household (and therefore the mortgage payers) should be pampered in style. The spacious master bedroom, sometimes with adjacent sitting room, and majestic master bath, were typically constructed at the expense of the secondary bedrooms, which can barely accommodate a twin bed, and only if it is shoved up against a wall.
The “no walls, no shower curtain” shower is usually a wheelchair, roll-in shower that is accommodating to the disabled. With no stall walls, no tracks for shower doors, and no curtain, it is easier for someone in a wheelchair to just roll up to the shower head and bathe.
~VOW
Our house doesn’t have an enormous bathroom - but the total square footage of the bath + closet (the closet is an oddly-shaped section cut out of the rectangle that forms both) is almost the size of the master bedroom at our old house (townhouse).
Why such a big bathroom? Well, even without going for super-luxurious, there’s more demand for slightly larger showers, and for separate tubs. Ours has a much larger tub than we “need” - could theoretically seat two people whose legs were tangled. But if you want to take a bath, it’s nice to not have to scrub all the shower residue out prior to soaking. and it’s nice to have a little more elbow room when, well, having a contemplative sit-down on the throne.
Beyond that, I don’t entirely see why the bathrooms get all that much larger. Sure, fancier fixtures, maybe a TV; maybe have the toilet in a separate cubicle so your spouse can shower / shave while you’re on the pot… maybe a bidet, maybe a larger shower so you can share. A little more square footage so you’re not stumbling across things. What else do even the rich folks need, bathroom-wise? Who spends a lot of time in there???
The fanciest bathroom I ever saw was in a house in Chapel Hill, that had been built “on spec” (One Friday Lane), and was open for people to tour before it finally sold. Master bath suite had his-and-hers toilet / sink areas, fairly large, joined by a shower area which had room for two. And a hallway of sorts, with a large soaking tub (with windows, overlooking the garden). And while it was nice, it was really overkill. It was really two separate bathrooms, conjoined by the shower and with a tub nearby.
Still, if someone can afford it and wants it, who am I to complain.
Well, in Ottawa it’ll get you 3,000 square foot, 4 bedroom house on a golf course. Complete with Enormous Master Bathroom ™.
Big bathrooms may not be that modern a phenomena. My grandfather built his custom house in the 1930’s – a 2 story brick home, perhaps the biggest in the neighborhood, but probably not more than 3000 sq ft. It had a bath on each floor, and most of each bathroom was empty space. Tubs and other fixtures took up a very small part of the floor along the walls; the bathroom was the size of most bedrooms today. Considering he didn’t design much else in the house that out-of-proportion enormous, I can only guess that it was the style back then.
Good point. My in-laws live in a 55+ community and their shower area has no walls separating it from the rest of the bathroom, which is quite large. Not a lot of fixtures, but it would be very wheelchair-friendly. Their former place was similarly open, shower-wise, though I think there was a half-wall of tile.
I have noticed this in some of the house plans. The master bedroom suite is gigantic (complete with ridiculously-large bath and closet/storage, while the three other bedroom are only about 12’ x 12’, and share a much smaller bathroom!
Huh, 12’ x 12’ would be a palatial bedroom! I’m talking about secondary bedrooms that are MAYBE 8’ x 10’!
~VOW