Houses with more bathrooms than bedrooms bug me. Bathrooms and kitchen require a lot of resources compared to living or sleeping spaces, but you spend less time in them. So I don't understand why you'd have more of those spaces in a building than multi-use living or sleeping spaces.
Anyway, there's my thoughts on #AffordableHousing and #ClimateChange for this morning.
@emmadavidson On a related note, small 2-bedroom apartments with both a bathroom and ensuite? Why would I want to sacrifice a sizeable percentage of my small space for a second bathroom I could do without?!
@emmadavidson I had a new house built and at all times tried to have it small as practicable. I chose to have one bathroom. Usually there are only two people living here, but we've had 3, and on one occasion, 4 house guests, and we all just had to share for a few days. It was fine, a mixture of respecting space and privacy, and also informality and intimacy.
If was to do it again I'd try to push the sustainability a bit harder, probably with a granny flat and a space for a tiny house, forming a sort of communal multi-residence, sharing the outdoor spaces.
@emmadavidson I agree... and yet, we have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and... still strife between the two girls who share a bathroom.
However, many times, we have seven adults (both girls' boyfriends). So, it kind of depends on the number and age of inhabitants.
In the past, these "adult" kids would have started moving out... these days, fat chance they can afford to do that.
The house seemed big with small kids (even when we only had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms)... but now, often seems small!
@level98 @emmadavidson I’d like 2. Obviously thinking changes over time. I can’t get a home care person to stay overnight with me after surgery, because they require use of a separate toilet.
@treleanor @level98 certainly there's individual needs that are different between households. If you're going to the expense and sunk carbon cost of an extra bathroom, it has to be weighed against what the people living in it actually need. They're the ones who need to think about if they want to use that space for a home office, or an extra bathroom, or a spare bedroom. Except that property developers don't build as much diversity of new homes as the community needs, so people end up buying things that just aren't quite what they really need.
@emmadavidson @level98 I don’t own my home, so there’s no chance. Was great to have 2 when there were kids in the house.
@treleanor @level98 yes. 2 in my house with 5 adults across 4 bedrooms. I once lived in a 3 bed 3 bath house where we turned the master bedroom into a home office and used the ensuite for storage, because there really was no need for cleaning that many bathrooms (and I was the cleaner).
@emmadavidson when we bought our house (in 2021 rough time!) we looked at so many places with multiple bathrooms. A lot of newer town houses had one bathroom per bedroom! We were looking for somewhere for us + 2 kids why would we want so many bathrooms and not a study or living space. One has to suspect developers make more money and then people have to live with it!
@FrancescaJ I'm told that for 2 bedroom apartments, having 2 bathrooms makes them more attractive rentals (two people house-sharing get a bathroom each). But it adds at least $30K to the build to fit out an average 7 square metre space as a bathroom as opposed to a study or small bedroom.
We (couple) had a 3 bedroom apartment and housed a lady Ukrainian refugee for a year, then a friend who was recuperating from a bad motorcycle accident who had no use of his leg for a year (he rented his house out as steps and our place had a single floor and elevator to get down to the pool for him to exercise, and near the train station to go to his specialist, they were super appreciative of their own toilet/shower but you're right, it wasn't really needed.
Professor Kevn Anderson (UK Manchester Uni CliSci) points out smaller homes are much less resource intensive and much more climate friendly, less irban sprawl. He suggested legislation that upon sale, large houses must be sub divided into flats.
@emmadavidson absolutely appealing for professionals renting! And yet it also annoys me so much of housing market is built with profit maximisation of landlords in mind when renters have so few rights. Which is another discussion entirely and one I’m sure we agree on!
Odd how the smaller housing in Australia ... like granny flats for people other than grannies, containers and tiny houses ...is not only looked down on but forbidden in many places ... even in country areas where housing doesn't match anyway ...
And some regions still have the 'no houses on less than 100 acres' rule...
