Isn’t it weird to reach a bathroom/balcony/rooftop terrace through someone else’s bedroom?

21 comments

1. The master bedroom often has its own bathroom. It’s unusual there wouldn’t be a “guest” bathroom on the same floor.

2. In cities where homes or larger, more grand apartments were broken up to house more people, apartments can be a bit wonky. Especially with a landlord that was pretty indifferent to the quality of life, and in a desirable location. You can get away with a lot as a landlord, anywhere, if the market is right.

   So a home layout that made sense before, might be broken up into 3 apartments.

   The viewer would probably understand that they were just old apartments from about 1900.

   Often times, in movies, this is played up with silly things like a tub in the living room, even though that would be really very, very unlikely.

3. I don’t think I’ve ever been in someone’s house where the only bathroom was attached to a bedroom, usually if a place has only one bathroom, it’s not attached to any other rooms. I would probably think that was a little weird. I’m not sure what’s weird about having a terrace accessible through your bedroom, though. That seems pretty cool.

4. The home you stayed in was not designed for hosting guests, the residents were making an allowance for you in this case.

   That is somewhat unusual in the grand scheme, but not for city apartments as I assume this is.

   Though usually if an apartment only has one bathroom, it wouldn’t be attached to the bedroom.

   >I see it in shows ans movies all the time.

   You’re seeing film sets in many cases. Not actual houses. Especially in the case of television.

5. I would find it weird as it’s something I’ve never experienced.

6. Well, I can give you a personal example.

   When I had to move to Peoria, IL, for med school, I moved into a high rise building (14 stories?) built in 1906. I rented a one-bedroom, as I was living by myself on a student’s budget.

   The apartment was great, except for the bedroom stepped right up (two stairs) into the bathroom. No door. To the right was the vanity, to the left was a linen area, further down, the toilet was to the left and the shower/bath straight ahead. The only way a guest could get privacy is for everyone to leave the bedroom.

   I installed one of those accordion like doors separating the toilet/shower area from the rest of the bathroom….and bedroom. It actually did the trick really well. Not as good as a door, but better than nothing.

   So no. I did not accept it lol

7. Yes. But such things were not always designed with convenience in mind.

   I’ve seen strange housing designs in places other than the US as well.

8. My apartment in Bogota had a balcony that was reached via the master bedroom. When we hosted parties it wasn’t a big deal to let people in there.

   Sometimes homes have funky layouts. My house has an attic playroom accessed via a door in the upstairs bathroom. We roll with it, and refer to it as Narnia.

9. It’s kind of weird.

10. Ive never really seen this. That’s not the norm

11. Places are not normally designed where the only access to a bathroom is through a bedroom. Where bedrooms have private bathrooms there is usually a separate half bath for other people to use.

    In places where housing costs are increasing, such as popular cities, homes are often modified by owners in order to extract more rent. Sometimes this creates odd situations like needing to access a bathroom through a bedroom.

    Homes constructed in high density areas may have constraints about how they lay out access to things like balconies and rooftops. For instance, for a home built in a long and narrow lot, where access to the rooftop needs to happen toward the rear of the building, the architect has to figure out how to make effective use of that space. If you just build a hallway and a stairway, first, that’s a poor use of square footage, but second, that may not leave space for a functional room next to it. Given the constraints, and the fact that adding another bedroom increases the value of the home, it’s not uncommon to see access to a balcony or rooftop through a bedroom like this.

12. I had an air b&b that had the only access to the finished basement was through a bathroom.

13. No, there’s usually a bathroom that you can get to through the hallway. Strange designs like this are often down to renovations that have took place in the home’s past, not the original design.

    I’m also not sure why you saw this one time and think it’s normal? Generally small older houses have one bathroom and it’s accessible from the hallway. Newer houses generally have many more bathrooms, some of which are attached to the bedroom and private to that bedroom, but there’s always other bathrooms that are attached to the hallways too.

14. We see this a lot with older houses. A lot of the big old houses have been transformed to allow for more rooms, which unfortunately leave wonky configurations.

    My house is like that as well. It is a huge Victorian house built in 1884 as a single family home (servents had a room in the attic). Later in the early 1900’s it was converted into a 2 family home. So the rooms that are in the house don’t retain their original purpose. The second floor would have been the living quarters and has a full bathroom and 4 bedrooms. I live on the first floor, and have a half bath as our main and only bathroom and the shower is in our laundry room that was added on to the house. It is quirky, but it adds to the charm of the house. And I’ve seen houses that are configured even worse than this one, I had a friend who’s old farmhouse, had you going through bedrooms to get to another bedroom. It was always fun sleeping over their house and having to use the bathroom – had to go through his sisters room, and parents room to get to the bathroom..

    Newer homes, built since the early 1900s, aren’t typically like this. So a lot of people don’t know the joys of living in a Frankenstein of a house.

15. A private balcony attached to a bedroom is fairly common, but a house with no guest bathroom is not common and definitely not ideal.

16. My in-laws had a hoopty house. You entered the kids’ rooms from the master bedroom

17. It is. Bathrooms, balconies, roof top access, etc connected to a bedroom as the only access point are considered private. The Standard is that if that is how things are set up you will have a second bathroom for other people living in the house or guests to use that have their access point in a communal space like a hall or off the living room.

    If the only bathroom is only accessible through a bedroom it is either a strange renovation that the owners had done, or it was a larger apartment that was split up into two or more apartments.

18. Older buildings that weren’t built for modern ways of living can end up with some strange arrangements. Ideally, I would say most Americans find apartments or living spaces weird if/when they are arranged like you describe, but if the location and the price are right, people will put up with flaws. What you describe isn’t typical or ideal though.

19. In the eighties, I had to walk through my grandma’s bedroom to get to mine.

20. All homes here don’t have the exact same floorplan. Some specific homes are built with certain quirks, especially older homes. And especially older homes modified over the years.

21. I had an apartment like this in Atlanta and one in Virginia. I thought it was super weird but these were in newer apartment complexes so I assume it is not that uncommon. I am in a college town now and many of the student complexes are set up like this too (can’t access any bathroom without going thru a bedroom). They are all en suites.