I am staying for a few days in a house rented from Vrbo. It’s a pretty big and modern house (acording to Zillow, it’s about 3,800 sqf, and built in 2006, and those look about right). Very nice place, but has a few design oddities, the most striking of which is the open concept bathrooms. There are three bathrooms, but only one of which is its own room. The other two are parts of bedrooms, with no partition between the toilet and the rest of the room (the one in the master bedroom has walls on 2 1/2 sides, but is open to a good portion of the room, and anyone doing their thing is exposed to about 50% of the surface area of the room, I would guess).
I find this bizarre. Besides for privacy issues, there is also a potential smell issue.
What’s the appeal of such things? Why would someone deliberately design a house like that?
I’ve seen such things in real estate listings I’ve been looking at lately. I saw a high-end penthouse apartment, and the whole thing screamed, “A rich pervert lives here!” There was one bathroom that had a sitting area that served no purpose other than to watch someone using the bathroom. Another had a floor-to-ceiling window in the shower, giving you a panoramic view of the horizon.
So I suspect that voyeurism/exhibitionism plays a role.
When we were looking for a house, we turned one down for that reason. Toilet sitting about 7-8 feet from the bed, with no walls or anything. We loved the house other than that, but it was an absolute show-stopper.
Another house we looked at had wall-to-wall carpeting in the bathroom. Ew. Some bathroom designs are bizarre.
It would certainly prevent me from ever visiting. Some people consider that an advantage. I think they’d also be preventing a lot more people from visiting, or visiting only once. And again, some people consider that an advantage.
My parents’ first apartment (they were 22) had the toilet in the living room. I was told this to illustrate the point that a couple can have too much togetherness.
I was in Cambodia with students in a “traditional” Cambodian hotel with bathroom walls that only came 3/4 to the ceiling. That was fun for their roommates when several students got food poisoning.
Our master bath is open to our bedroom, but off to the corner a bit. An L shape, I guess. There is a large tub, a sink area, a steam shower, a coffee nook(sink, microwave, etc) and a toilet. The contractor originally had the toilet out in the open, although on the far side of the shower, so a little secluded. We insisted in be walled in and have its own door. Since then I’ve seen a few bathrooms with a toilet in the open. I’m horrified by the concept. What are we, in prison?
On a related note, we stayed in a wonderful hotel in Nashville once that had a bathroom with glass walls, with varying (but inadequate) amount of frosting. Even though we’ve been married a long time, my wife and I prefer more privacy than this. Found it:
When I was house hunting I would have rejected this immediately. I wouldn’t even buy a house that had the bathroom mirror across from the toilet. That is not a time I want to look at myself.
Decades ago (and it continues 'til today) I’ve noticed that a lot of UK designers like to put their bath tub in the bedroom. Not quite as bad as the toilet, but I don’t get the appeal.
Yes, that’s all that is required. It’s a great hotel. I can’t imagine they haven’t heard feed back on this and rectified the situation. I have to believe very view people want a view into the bathroom, and those who don’t, really really don’t.
About forty years ago, we visited England, where we found that some people had the bathroom sink outside the bathroom. (They also had separate hot and cold taps.)
I recently reviewed a pension in Spain, noting among other issues the rattling, difficult-to-operate quietly sliding glass door to the bathroom (positioned in this small room about 3 feet from the head of the bed) through which the bright amber emergency exit light mounted over the bathroom door on the interior side both diffused into the room and was reflected by the mirror right back into the bedroom.
The appeal of “open concept” anything is that that the living space looks bigger and less choppy. Personally I think the drawbacks of an unenclosed toilet are too horrendous to even compare to whatever is aesthetically gained by being more “open”.
But then again, sometimes people have certain parts of the home that are for showing, and they do their actual living in other rooms. So maybe the open bathroom is just for appearances and they use a different bathroom for their day-to-day needs.
Or, maybe the owner simply lives alone and doesn’t expect to share the bathroom with anyone.
Whatever the case, it’s certainly not something I’d even consider.
I assume that many of these designs are based on extreme space-saving measures along with the idea that the place is too small for multiple residents or guests and there really won’t be anyone around to either look into or wander into an open bathroom.
The builder’s proposal in our house was not based on lack of space. Our master suite is huge. He must have known people who okayed such an idea, as he didn’t seem to think it was that unusual.
Even with our toilet behind a door, my wife and I often use a different bathroom for “day to day needs.” But I must say, an exposed toilet “just for appearances” is a concept I cannot grasp.
Our current house has a large laundry room, probably 10 by 12 ft, in the basement. There’s a closet, tub sink, folding shelf, cabinets - and a toilet. It’s like they thought, “hey, plumbing - why not?”. The room has a door that closes it off from the rest of the basement, so it’s got adequate privacy if needed. But it is weird.
I can see how the open concept might be helpful to someone with mobility issues, but even then there are better design options. A large bathtub or jacuzzi in the bedroom actually sounds kina cool, especially if it’s facing a TV or fireplace.
There are multiple hotels in NYC with this setup (Yotel, the Pod Hotels, etc). The small rooms (& lower rates) are a selling point; they’re marketed to travelers who basically just want a private place to sleep, bath, and store luggage. The rooms only sleep on or two people.
Yotel’s solo cabins have the full length mirror directly facing the toilet so you can get an “interesting” view if you don’t slide the frosted glass door closed.