In my part of the US, a lot of our "old" houses were built before indoor plumbing.
So when the plumbing was installed, obviously some went to the kitchen. And the bathroom, which previously didn't exist, was often an addition to (or a division from) the kitchen -- with a doorway [with a door] betwixt the kitchen and the bathroom -- because that made the plumbing easier.
IIRC, that particular feature disqualifies the home for financing with both the VA and with HUD for reasons of hygiene.
So by extension: According to VA and HUD, hygiene requires at least one door and at least one additional room of separation between the place where you shit and the place where you eat.
I assume my house in the Northeast didn't originally have indoor plumbing. The bathroom is upstairs; I assume it was carved off from one of the upstairs bedrooms or it was a closet/storage area of some sort. It's been redone a couple times since I moved in and it does have a door.
My present house (in Ohio) also has its singular bathroom upstairs. The bathroom is on top of the kitchen. Neither room is an addition -- as far as I can tell, it has always used this basic layout.
According to aerial photos, it was built in the 1950s. It resides within a small but very industrialized city that was positively booming at the time the home was constructed; it definitely included plumbing from the beginning.
A previous house in the same city was definitely built before indoor plumbing. It was even built before separate kitchens were considered normal or necessary. It originally had only two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. Heating and cooking would have been provided by a central stove (probably wood-fired, and with no ductwork).
While it was stick-built, it was initially only a step or two above a fairly primitive log cabin in function.
By the time I lived there, it also had a kitchen, laundry, downstairs bathroom, another upstairs bedroom, and subgrade basement added. The bathroom was part of the kitchen addition, and one entered the bathroom through the kitchen.
I've actually lived in three houses so far that were initially constructed like that -- with two rooms downstairs, and two upstairs.
Only one of those 3 had a bathroom that was separated from the kitchen by a room, and that one was perhaps the oldest: The floor joists for the first level were made from logs that were hewn flat[ish] on the top by hand, and that still hard bark on them. For that house, the bathroom was its own small separate single-story addition that jutted off of the side of [what had become] the dining room.
The house I grew up in was larger and much more-nicely finished in terms of things like woodworking and trim, but was also very old by US norms. It was built before both plumbing and electricity, though it included gas lighting (!) in every room. The partial basement, kitchen and downstairs bathroom were additions, but the bathroom connected to two different common rooms even though it was physically adjacent to the kitchen. There also was an upstairs bathroom, and which was created by taking part of the master bedroom and making it into a hallway while the the original bedroom closet became the bathroom (with a small and somewhat haphazard roof extension where the bathtub was).
Anyway: The point, other than that old houses present interesting evolutions, is that old houses often (but not always) had bathrooms attached to the kitchen -- and that we usually seek to keep them separated these days in newer construction, at least in the US.
I've also lived in a few different apartment buildings (many of which were "old", but all of which were initially intended to be apartment buildings), and all of those bathrooms were separated from the kitchen by a hallway.
And all of these bathrooms had doors. I don't understand the questioning of bathroom doors that I see here in some comments -- at all.
(I shall spare at this time the details of the house I once owned that had been an old farmhouse (with no gas, no lights, and no plumbing), and which had subsequently been divided into a triplex that contained a total of 17 distinct rooms. I could probably write a whole book about that place.)
>A 2024 study showed evidence that even closing the lid may still lead to small viral particles escaping through gaps under the lid, resulting in viral cross contamination of the air and surfaces in a washroom
Have you just been trolling this thread for a few hours posting this copypasta to anyone who thinks not having bathroom doors is gross? This is the third or fourth one of these I've seen, and that's a pretty weird battle to fight, is all I'm saying.
Little pieces of shit can fly through the air quite far when the wc is flushed. As a former British person I had no idea about this, but was brought up to speed by US family members..
Update: this is why you should put the lid down to flush. But put it back up again after because <reasons>
So, would you state that you generally advocate for hinged surfaces in bathrooms, and being able to use them to adequately close/shield a larger space from a smaller space? ;)
In my part of the US, a lot of our "old" houses were built before indoor plumbing.
So when the plumbing was installed, obviously some went to the kitchen. And the bathroom, which previously didn't exist, was often an addition to (or a division from) the kitchen -- with a doorway [with a door] betwixt the kitchen and the bathroom -- because that made the plumbing easier.
IIRC, that particular feature disqualifies the home for financing with both the VA and with HUD for reasons of hygiene.
So by extension: According to VA and HUD, hygiene requires at least one door and at least one additional room of separation between the place where you shit and the place where you eat.
I assume my house in the Northeast didn't originally have indoor plumbing. The bathroom is upstairs; I assume it was carved off from one of the upstairs bedrooms or it was a closet/storage area of some sort. It's been redone a couple times since I moved in and it does have a door.
That's not so unusual, either.
My present house (in Ohio) also has its singular bathroom upstairs. The bathroom is on top of the kitchen. Neither room is an addition -- as far as I can tell, it has always used this basic layout.
According to aerial photos, it was built in the 1950s. It resides within a small but very industrialized city that was positively booming at the time the home was constructed; it definitely included plumbing from the beginning.
A previous house in the same city was definitely built before indoor plumbing. It was even built before separate kitchens were considered normal or necessary. It originally had only two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. Heating and cooking would have been provided by a central stove (probably wood-fired, and with no ductwork).
While it was stick-built, it was initially only a step or two above a fairly primitive log cabin in function.
By the time I lived there, it also had a kitchen, laundry, downstairs bathroom, another upstairs bedroom, and subgrade basement added. The bathroom was part of the kitchen addition, and one entered the bathroom through the kitchen.
I've actually lived in three houses so far that were initially constructed like that -- with two rooms downstairs, and two upstairs.
Only one of those 3 had a bathroom that was separated from the kitchen by a room, and that one was perhaps the oldest: The floor joists for the first level were made from logs that were hewn flat[ish] on the top by hand, and that still hard bark on them. For that house, the bathroom was its own small separate single-story addition that jutted off of the side of [what had become] the dining room.
The house I grew up in was larger and much more-nicely finished in terms of things like woodworking and trim, but was also very old by US norms. It was built before both plumbing and electricity, though it included gas lighting (!) in every room. The partial basement, kitchen and downstairs bathroom were additions, but the bathroom connected to two different common rooms even though it was physically adjacent to the kitchen. There also was an upstairs bathroom, and which was created by taking part of the master bedroom and making it into a hallway while the the original bedroom closet became the bathroom (with a small and somewhat haphazard roof extension where the bathtub was).
Anyway: The point, other than that old houses present interesting evolutions, is that old houses often (but not always) had bathrooms attached to the kitchen -- and that we usually seek to keep them separated these days in newer construction, at least in the US.
I've also lived in a few different apartment buildings (many of which were "old", but all of which were initially intended to be apartment buildings), and all of those bathrooms were separated from the kitchen by a hallway.
And all of these bathrooms had doors. I don't understand the questioning of bathroom doors that I see here in some comments -- at all.
(I shall spare at this time the details of the house I once owned that had been an old farmhouse (with no gas, no lights, and no plumbing), and which had subsequently been divided into a triplex that contained a total of 17 distinct rooms. I could probably write a whole book about that place.)
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In Singapore (of all places) many apartments have one of their toilets right next to the kitchen. Seems to be fine.
But they have a door, right?
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That wouldn't apply to hotel rooms, though, as most do not have kitchens in the guest rooms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_plume
A door provides at least some kind of physical barrier.
Only if everybody is closing the door. If I use a hotel room alone, I never close the bathroom door.
You don't close the door when doing number two in your own home either?
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Have you considered closing the toilet lid?
>A 2024 study showed evidence that even closing the lid may still lead to small viral particles escaping through gaps under the lid, resulting in viral cross contamination of the air and surfaces in a washroom
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Many American toilets don't have lids.
Flushing generates aerosols that travel.
Have you considered closing the lid?
Have you just been trolling this thread for a few hours posting this copypasta to anyone who thinks not having bathroom doors is gross? This is the third or fourth one of these I've seen, and that's a pretty weird battle to fight, is all I'm saying.
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Yes, but I've also considered the previous guest not closing the lid.
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Little pieces of shit can fly through the air quite far when the wc is flushed. As a former British person I had no idea about this, but was brought up to speed by US family members..
Update: this is why you should put the lid down to flush. But put it back up again after because <reasons>
The steady state of my toilet is closed. As my mother used to say: 'This ain't an open plan toilet.'
(Of course, she said it in German, so she complained about 'Wohnklo' in analogy with a 'Wohnküche' which is the German word for an open-plan kitchen.)
So, would you state that you generally advocate for hinged surfaces in bathrooms, and being able to use them to adequately close/shield a larger space from a smaller space? ;)
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>But put it back up again after because <reasons>
What reasons?