OK, what's the deal with double sinks in the bathroom?
Every single home show on TV boasts how great the double sinks are but seriously, how many people are actually in the bathroom at the same time as their spouse? How many people really NEED a double sink?
Do you have double sinks in the bathroom and do you use them at the same time?
Nope, on both counts.
Maybe some people have a lot of crap on the sink counter and the other person doesn't, so it's their own 'space'.
I wish my bathroom was big enough for a sink with a big counter. In the house I grew up in it was built in the 1960s and the bathroom I used had a big counter. The house we own was built in the 1930s when people didn't usually have big bathrooms.
DH and I often have to be at work at the same time, so yeah, we are at the sinks at the same time.
Besides, I need the evidence to prove that HE is the messy one in the bathroom, not me! See how awful HIS sink is, and how clean mine is! HA HA HA!
One of the things I'm figuring out as a part-time real estate agent is that it's not about the SENSE something makes, it's about the perception. Two sinks is a luxury, upscale item. In some neighborhoods, it's an absolute necessity. Granite is luxury -- and never mind that it has to be re-sealed, and had other daily-use problems (as do marble (chips), stainless steel (scratches), concrete (chips), and pretty much anything other than good ol laminate/formica (which still burns if you put something hot on it)). A jacuzzi tub is practically standard in all homes over $170k in my area -- but a bathroom refinishing guy says he removes so many of them it's not even funny.
Take the open floor-plan, for example. Why, with the open floor plan, you can watch TV while you cook! You can watch the kids while you cook! The cook is not trapped in the kitchen, separate from the rest of life!!! Never mind that an open floor plan means cooking smells now have unlimited range to travel throughout the house.
Take tile. Tile has got to be THE MOST uncomfortable floor surface to stand on. If you like to cook, your feet and back ache by the time you're done making a huge dinner while standing on your tile kitchen floor. The grout stains, even if properly sealed -- and it has to be re-sealed periodically. But by golly, you've about GOT to have it in kitchens and/or bathrooms, or the house just isn't a "quality" house.
And hardwood floors. I love them. But I also know you can't let your friends in with their high heels, or let the dog run (nail scratches), or move furniture without picking it up (gouges), or drop anything on them, or they are toast. They are great for people like me, though -- awful for people with kids, though, because the HW floors will be trash within a year or two.
But I can't tell you how many times I've been with buyers, or even with other agents, and we walk into a house, and we go OOOOHH! and AAAAAHH! at the tile, and the granite, and the hardwood floors, and the open floorplan, and the double sinks, and the jacuzzi tub, and the separate all-glass shower (if you don't wash your windows, you should NOT get an all-glass shower, or you should hire help). We learn what is "quality" and "luxury", and that's what people want, whether or not it's a sensible and livable choice in the end.
(My new house, which I will HOPEFULLY close on on Friday, has not only double sinks, but comfort-height sinks. I love them! No granite, though. Hardwood in the entry and dining room. Tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. Open floor plan).
My real pet-peeve, though -- the stacked-stone shower. How do you get soap scum off? Do you actually have to wash all the protruding sides of each stone, or in the case of "flat" stacked stone, get into all the nooks and crannies? It's so beautiful, and yet from a practical standpoint, it's dumber than all of the above combined.
I wish I did, but that's only because we live in the smallest craphole apartment you can imagine at the moment. I honestly just want the counter space more than the sinks.. so I guess I would rather just have one sink and a huge counter
Yeah, see the whole "my sink is clean and his is dirty" thing doesn't make sense to me either because I can't stand a dirty bathroom. If one sink is dirty, it makes the entire space look dirty.
It's like an unmade bed. Your house could be spotless but if the bed is unmade, it ruins the tidiness of the entire space.
We do use two sinks when we are in a hotel, but it's more about the amount of space around the sinks to put stuff. We seldom actually use both sinks at once, except one might be soaking laundry and the other is washing hands. At home we have separate bathrooms.
I want to go back later and consider what PG said about form over function. That's a very interesting area to me.
The house we're renting now was built around 1980 and has double sinks in the master bathroom. It's a pointless waste of space, and it's all hideous and 80s looking. This is the 15th place I've lived in and it's the first with double sinks, and I really hate it. I loved my Victorian-era bath in Maine with the pedestal sink.
PG, real hardwood floors actually last and last. The cheap kind that some people call "hardwood" is the kind that gets scratched up by dogs and kids. I lived in three houses with real original hardwood floors, the houses ranged in age from 80-110 years, those floors lived through kids and dogs and high heels and furniture moving around all those decades and those floors were beautiful. Once DH and I put down a cheap wood floor in an entryway, it was not hardwood, but pressed wood chip planks with slivers of stained wood on top to make it look like it was hardwood (most modern houses have this now and call it hardwood, but it's not even close), and it was scratched by the dogs and heavy traffic in no time, it had to be removed within 5 years. Real hardwood will last forever.
We have 2 and I like it for the counterspace, but he doesn't like what I have sitting on my side, etc so I guess I like it. Sometimes we use them at the same time and DH takes up a lot of room. If it were one sink but the same counterspace I'd be fine with just the one.
Hardwood describes a range, from oak to maple and many others.
Maple hardwood floors will result in scratches and problems (even if it's pure maple - the most expensive that you can buy) while an oak floor or even harder options will be much more durable.
I liked the look of the maple but decided on something else (maybe oak? I can't remember - but I have a vague recollection that it was something else because I didn't like the way the lines looked with oak) as my cat's nails would have caused problems.
Of course the softer woods grow faster (which is why they are softer) so they tend to be cheaper (although this isn't a universal truth). Softer woods (birch being an extreme example, although it's so soft that it wouldn't be used for flooring) tend to burn faster and hotter.
Oh, maybe I have pine floors? Evergreens are usually harder than deciduous trees, as they grow much more slowly on average (at least in some parts of Canada - my knowledge is localised).
Our house is about 50 years old and has hardwood floors. They do occassionally get scuffed up by our dog, but we just go over the floors with all-in-one cleaner/wax/buffer stuff (something like Johnson's One-Stop No-Buff Floor Polish) and then the floors look great again. And we typicially only do this every 5 years or so. We did it when we first moved into our house in 2004 and then a second time a little over a year ago.
And as far as moving furniture around on hardwood floors, I've found that putting cardboard under the legs of tables, beds, dressers, etc. helps a lot. They move more easily (slide across the room) and they don't scuff up the floor.
Re: moving furniture on hardwood or other soft surfaces
We put felt pads under all our furniture legs such as these:
http://www.floorfacts.com/floor-protector-pads.asp
Not only do they protect your floor, they make it easier to move heavy furniture around. Chairs and tables simply slide across the floor.
We've talked about having a bathroom with two sinks when we got a home of our own, but the reality of the matter is we rather have a double size shower over the two sinks so we can take showers together, just more practical for us when it comes to things then a double sink would be.
Where we currently live, the floors are all wood and in mint condition and the house is over 100 years old (we're the third and final gen to live in my family home) and has seen its share of kids and animal's not to mention a wheelchair and lots of furniture moving.
I would love double sinks in the bathroom. Many mornings J and I are competing in the bathroom and it's not uncommon at night either. It would be nice for both of us to have mirror and sink space. I dream of a second bathroom and then we'd both have our own, but double sinks would be a good start.
I think double sinks are actually practical. If the two of you work similar schedules then yes you do have that traffic jam in the bathroom, especially if he does his shaving over the sink and she does her makeup there. I do love the idea of a double shower though. Makes a lot more sense. Even as a single I'd love to get warm water on those cold days on both sides.
(07-07-2010 01:22 PM)kittiesplease Wrote: [ -> ]I wish I did, but that's only because we live in the smallest craphole apartment you can imagine at the moment. I honestly just want the counter space more than the sinks.. so I guess I would rather just have one sink and a huge counter
I wish we did too kittieplease. Not cause we live in a crap hole apt. But we live in a crap hole HOUSE. With a 2x4 bathroom that has no space at all.
And yes on weekends hubby is always in my way.
After being married for 25 years come tommorrow, we even have to go pee at the exact same damn time. So, not only do I wish we had double sinks. I wish we had double toilets too
We have double sinks and like them a lot. We each have our own sink/counter/and section of the medicine cabinet mirror thing. It works well. We do get up at around the same time and often brush our teeth for bed together. Of course, we're newlyweds so maybe in a year this will change?