Why don't people like downstairs bathrooms?

(61 Posts)
Maebe Fri 15-Mar-13 10:41:11

I keep seeing this pop up on so many threads and I'm always confused why people feel quite so strongly against downstairs bathrooms.

We have one - old converted/extended 2-up, 2-down, so it is off our kitchen. I've not only got used to it, I really quite like it now. It's surprisingly handy. For example...

It's great with young DCs, you can go to the loo without being a whole floor away from them (say if you only have an upstairs bathroom)

It makes getting ready in the morning so easy. I can have the baby's milk warming and the kettle boiling etc while I start the shower. I find that saves time as compared to when I had a house with an upstairs bathroom and was trudging up and down between floors. I can see it being easier when the DCs are older, they can be eating breakfast in the kitchen while I'm ten feet away showering etc.

And the same thing in the evenings - one of us bathes DC while the other is in the kitchen starting dinner, it's quite sociable really!

Also, I spend most of my time in my house downstairs. Where the loo is. Which is all very handy, really grin

Yes, once in a blue moon I wake up in the middle of the nights and think, arse, I've got to go downstairs to pee, but that's so rare. The only time it was an issue was when I was heavily pregnant, and then I just admitted defeat and had a bucket in the spare room. And tbh, the stairs were so annoying I half suspect I would have put a bucket somewhere downstairs if the bathroom had been upstairs!

Now, obviously the ideal would be some form of toilet on every floor, but not every house has room for that. So why do people hate the thought of a downstairs bathroom quite so much?

ChocsAwayInMyGob Fri 15-Mar-13 17:41:54

I need a loo on each floor as I need to pee about 20 times a day. I also like having a bath or shower near where my clothes and dressing table are, not near where the kitchen and the back door is.

"It feels messy to me -- upstairs is for the private and personal, downstairs is for the social. I don't want to be traipsing back and forth in a towel. I think it would be particularly trying with and for visitors."

Yes - exactly this!

I also don't want to lie in a nice scented bath with the smell of that evenings curry wafting through. And vice versa.

I don't want to advertise the fact that I've had a leaky period to all and sundry while I'm trekking through the kitchen in front of everyone.

equally body-fluids based reason: i don't want to go the loo after sex
Leaking semen down my leg as I run down the stairs


I don't want to be ill in bed and have to trek up and down either, particularly if guests are there.

I don't want to panic wondering what to do if dc wake up in the night about to vomit.

There are so many......

BalloonSlayer Fri 15-Mar-13 17:50:56

Where I grew up just about everyone had as their first few homes a 2-up, 2 down Victorian terrace which had the kitchen and bathroom stuck on the back. No one ever batted an eyelid.

I was gobsmacked a few years ago when our neighbours converted their 3 big bedroom end of terrace with a downstairs bathroom to a 2 bedroom end of terrace with an upstairs bathroom . . . there was plenty of room to turn one bedroom into a bathroom and a very small bedroom (that's what had been done to ours), but no, they got rid of a whole bedroom because the Estate Agent said no one would want it with a downstairs bathroom. shock What a waste of money!

Oblomov Fri 15-Mar-13 18:11:47

I don't like it. We have an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs WC, so all guests can use the one downstairs. Works very well.

herhonesty Fri 15-Mar-13 18:14:35

Privacy, inconvenience, faff and hastle factor. Coldness.

BackforGood Fri 15-Mar-13 18:26:19

I bet you don't like it so much once your dc are teens, and have friends draping themselves around the lounge and kitchen, when you want a bath / shower wink

Maebe Fri 15-Mar-13 19:49:42

Back, that's 15 years away so I'll worry about that then grin

I am intrigued about all the worry re peeing and that at night. I do get why people would prefer an upstairs bathroom but... are people only ever ill at night? Do they not need to pee during the day?

Strangely, our bathroom is one of the warmest rooms in the house. I don't quite get how a downstairs bathroom would be colder than an upstairs one?

i almost always need the loo in the night and i don't like the idea of having to go all the way downstairs. i have lived in a downstairs flat with the bathroom off the kitchen. it was ok, but i prefer bathroom upstairs. i'm not sure it's that surprising. if others like a downstairs bathroom then great!

a downstairs bathroom might well be colder because heat rises, but it rather depends on the layout/insulation

ILikeBirds Fri 15-Mar-13 19:55:51

A lot of people's experience of downstairs bathrooms is likely to be of a poorly built extension tacked on the back of victorian house. Often only built single skin and hence cold and damp as a result.

If you're ill and in bed, it doesn't matter whether it's day or night, you want the bathroom close to the bedroom.

Maebe Fri 15-Mar-13 19:56:03

I didn't mean to suggest it was surprising smile I'm just intrigued really why people would actually let it put them off a whole house, if the rest was great.

MrsJamin Fri 15-Mar-13 20:42:19

We are just about to leave our two up two down Vic terrace with bathroom off the kitchen. Now our boys are getting older we definitely need more Than one bathroom, as the youngest will be potty training soon. There's definite down sides and I am glad to be leaving here. Running downstairs with a vomiting toddler is not fun. Having a child doing a smelly poo whilst you're cooking is not fun. I am looking forward to going straight from the bathroom to my bedroom without going through the kitchen, dining room, up the stairs, etc. However for a time it was fine and didn't bother us, plus we sold this pretty quickly so I don't think it does bother everyone especially without children.

AliceWChild Fri 15-Mar-13 22:10:26

Yes I think it seems to be a specific type of downstairs bathroom people are talking about. Mine isn't off the kitchen, nor in a cold damp extension.

StrangerintheNight Sat 16-Mar-13 00:04:33

I lived in a flat for a year with a combined bathroom/kitchen. There was a separate toilet, but the shower was right next to the cooker, and there were 2 sinks, one for dishes, one for brushing teeth etc.

Not great for privacy, although this was continental Europe, so privacy a concept which only prudish British girls worried about. Flatmate and I had to have quite a well organised morning routine...

lalalonglegs Sat 16-Mar-13 08:40:58

Another reason not to like them is that they usually cut off the "normal" access to the garden, you generally have to come out of a side door in the kitchen and go down a narrow side return which is a bit of a bleurgh space rather than being able to walk out of a door at the rear of the kitchen into the main section of garden. They just seem to get in the way.

Agree with everyone who has said that they are often cold and damp too.

fatnfrumpy Sat 16-Mar-13 10:27:12

We are renovating a e 3 bed with bathroom off the kitchen.
We asked the EA should be sacrifice the 3rd bedroom and move the bathroom upstairs. They said a definate no!
However we are making room between bed 1 and 2 for a shower room and toilet.
Would that make a difference to all the downstairs bathroom haters?

georgedawes Sat 16-Mar-13 10:28:29

I just remember having food poisoning as a child and not making it to the toilet on time, then vomiting all over the kitchen walls. Yuk.

Fat - (weird to call someone that to get their attention in a nice way wink) yes that would make all the difference too me. Not sacrificing a bedroom but still able to run for a shit in the middle of the night grin

Maebe Sat 16-Mar-13 10:44:06

Fatnfrumpy, I think that would be the ideal. We're not planning on being in this house for years, but if we were, or the next house still has a downstairs bathroom, we'd find a way to put a teeny en-suite loo somewhere. But sacrificing a 3rd bedroom, or even turning the 2 doubles, 1 single into a 1 double, 2 single, would actually knock quite a lot off your house.

Most people would probably prefer to have a toilet on all floors. If there was a toilet on each floor I can't see how it would be an enormous issue which floor the actual bath/shower was on.

(Also I can admit the area I am in, most of the houses have downstairs bathrooms and the conversions are all done well - at least in everything we viewed to buy - so no smelly, damp extensions, so this undoubtedly biases me)

Bunbaker Sat 16-Mar-13 10:47:48

"I think it's really unhygienic if the bathroom (particularly the toilet)is directly off the kitchen."

I think modern building regulations demand that there should be two doors between a downstairs toilet and the kitchen.

I would hate a downstairs bathroom for all the reasons given here already. I wouldn't even bother looking at a house that didn't have an upstairs bathroom, unless it was a bungalow. I think the OP must just have babies in nappies to not understand why most people prefer an upstairs bathroom.

I don't think it is just larger houses that now have downstairs toilets. All small modern houses I have been in lately also have downstairs toilets, and a lot of them manage to squeeze in an en-suite bathroom.

Maebe Sat 16-Mar-13 11:45:18

Bun, I get the preference for an upstairs toilet. As I said, I'd rather have one. Yes, I do still have a baby in nappies, but I can see why you'd like the kids to be able to pee easily at night. I'm also thinking about a bathroom. As I said, if you have a toilet on each floor, I'm intrigued why people would prefer the bath/shower to be upstairs. Like I said, I'm discovering a lot of pros. Once you take the toilet out of the equation, so to speak, (which as you say, for most modern houses is the case, though where I live most of the housing stock is older so those with toilets on every floor are either very large, or have had room cut out of a bedroom to make an en-suite) there's a lot of benefits to a downstairs bathroom.

(Obviously if someone could give me one bathroom per person I'd be a very happy bunny grin)

annh Sat 16-Mar-13 12:23:23

Who are you trying to persuade here?! Yourself or us? If it works for you, great. Personally it would be of not benefit to me to have a downstairs bathroom as I don't have small children so no need for supervising them at breakfast while having a shower, etc and I really wouldn't want to be getting dressed in the living room either. Horses for courses.

BackforGood Sat 16-Mar-13 12:35:55

Well, as annh suggests - people have given you lots of reasons, but it seems you don't actually want to know why people prefer their bathroom upstairs.
Mainly though - once you've changed the question and now said there could be a toilet upstairs - is that people doon't want to traipse across the landing, down the stairs, along the hallway (or through the living room), then through the kitchen, having to carry all their clothes they are going to put on with them, each time they have a shower or bath. If you forget something, you can nip across the landing in the nude if you like, or just with a towel round you, without having to do the journey where other people will be.

jamaisjedors Sat 16-Mar-13 14:33:02

I totally get what you are saying.

We have an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs one, and we only ever use the downstairs one, for all the reasons you state.

When the DC were v. little it was perfect, and even now, I start them on breakfast and go and have my shower - they are only a room away if they need me.

Like you, we get clothes together the night before and get dressed straight from the shower.

It is not off the kitchen though, there is a room (our study) in-between.

It means I can mn in the study while the DC brush their teeth in the bathroom next door!

Bunbaker Sat 16-Mar-13 15:14:36

It sounds to me that it is more practical for some of you to have a downstairs bathroom when your children are little.

I still don't like the thought of having a bathroom so near to family living. To me it doesn't afford much privacy, especially when you have people staying. I like to be upstairs, away from the rest of the household while performing my ablutions. I like being able to nip across the landing if I have forgotten something. Even though we have a downstairs loo I still prefer to run upstairs when I need to go. Besides, the exercise is good for me.

PlasticLentilWeaver Sat 16-Mar-13 16:04:13

Fatnfrumpy - don't put a jack and Jill bathroom in, unless you want to hear every bodily function of any guest who uses the other bedroom! We are currently living in a rental like this, and I admit to refusing to view any house with a jack and jill as a potential purchase as it has put me off so much. Saying that, this house also has a downstairs bathroom, and a separate downstairs shower room. Its only a 3 bed hmm.

We have also just sold a 2 up 2 down with bathroom downstairs at the back, off the kitchen. Its a little Victorian place that didn't have a bathroom at all until 1952. Didn't put me off buying it, and doesn't seem to have made it hard to sell on.

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