What are your facilities like ?

Even if you had a bathroom, one per house, often with the only loo in the bathroom was the norm for even large houses.

My DF was one of 11. My grandfather bought a big 7 bedroomed house. It had one bathroom (with the loo in it) for a household that could contain upto 13 people, although he did then install an extra loo under the stairs at ground level.

A generation later my sister and I lived with our grandparents for a couple of years in our teens. The household, with us, was then down to 8, and it never occurred to any of us that a second bathroom or an extra loo would be useful. Second bathrooms were unheard of.

Why does "facilities" sound so furtive?

Well, I keep reading it as 'faculties' so obviously mine are not as sharp these days.

I suppose that, if you have umpteen bathrooms, you can afford a cleaner.
No!

But I am thankful for the downstairs loo these days as I seem to be getting 'caught short' more often now.

4 bedrooms, downstairs loo, family bathroom and ensuite. Both bathrooms have baths with showers over - best of both worlds IMO.

When I was a child we were a family of 6 in a 4 bed house with one loo indoors, but at least it was separate from the bathroom. Normal then I think - people had baths, not showers, which typically took longer.

We did also have an outside loo, but it was very rarely used, certainly by us kids - too many spiders!

Callistemon, [laugh[,

"Why does "facilities" sound so furtive?

Well, I keep reading it as 'faculties' so obviously mine are not as sharp these days."

No, it shows you and I try not to deal in useless euphemisms.

I don't think facilities sounds furtive, it was someone up thread who said that.

But yes, I do keep assuming it says faculties

lavatories, bathrooms

en-suite is rather posh!
as is powder room (I've never powdered my nose in a powder room).

Where I live now at age 85 is far different than the large homes that I owned during my working years.

www.oakmontoffresno.com/

It was me said that. 'Furtive' was the wrong word. I couldn't think of the right word for what I meant. Still can't.

when I was growing up to 21, eldest of 7 siblings. 3 bedroom house, one outside lav for years then one upstairs bathroom with lav. 5 girls in one big bedroom and it was such fun, all that girl talk. We never felt deprived, indeed 50 years later we are still a very close family

There's an interesting article on the BBC today about how much it cost to buy a house in the decades from the 60's onwards. Apparently in 1968, one in eight homes still lacked basic amenities such as baths, hot water or an inside toilet.

We were talking about outside loos with a friend recently ,they had one up until she was about 10 ..and she was born in 1961 .I've never lived in a house without a bathroom and neither did my mum who was born in 1923 so i thought that 1970 was very recent for an outside toilet.Apparently not Suedonim,I'll remember to tell her when i next see her .

It's a really interesting article, Paddyann.

I'm guessing that there were still quite a number of slums around in the 60's and into the 70's. If you've read Alan Johnson's book This Boy you'll recall the descriptions of his Dickensian living conditions well into the 60's.

Oh, the link would have been useful! www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/pjfxZM72Gj/house-buyer-time-machine

I lived in a three bedroom house with 4 siblings which had no bathroom, no hot water and an outside chemical lavatory across the yard. When I was 13/14 (59 years ago) we moved to a three bedroomed council house with hot water, a large bathroom and toilet. There was also a brick built side extension with another toilet (flush!), a coal shed, wash house and a shed that my dad used, with a corridor between them and the main house, where we played in wet weather. Such luxury! During our time there my 5th sibling was born.

Looking back, those post war council houses were amazing. The rooms were big. There was a large pantry off the kitchen. A coal burning Rayburn in the kitchen heated the water, kept the house warm and was used for cooking. Plenty of storage space as there were built in cupboards in all the bedrooms and under the stairs. In addition to all that there was a large garden front and back. I often wonder how they have been modernised over the years.

Just rereading the book SueDonim. Unbelievable that so many people were still living with shared toilet "facilities"

Do you remember what outside toilets were like? The paraffin lamp to stop the pipes freezing in winter and in the 50s, the cut up sqares of newspaper on wire. No electric light and plenty of spiders. Naturally that meant potties under beds.

It was demolished in 1968 but what a sense of neighbourliness, all pulling together to help each other, our playgrounds were the streets and bomb sites. No-one had a garden, just a small back yard. Those sort of conditions lead to aspirations and me and all my siblings became respected professional people, expert witness, medics etc. Those were the days when libararies were properly used. S*d the facilities, they were not what mattered, it was the loving stable family and hopes for the future

Liverpool btw, a cycle ride from the centre

It was demolished in 1968, the street of houses was demolished and communities were split up

We have a main bathroom upstairs but decided to replace the bath with a walk-in shower. Downstairs we have a downstairs cloakroom which is invaluable for guests and daily living for ourselves.

Grandma2213 Council houses built some time ago ( not the newer ones) were excellent and people moved out of substandard housing were very happy in them.
They were solidly built, with bigger rooms than modern estate homes have, big gardens and often had allotments for the working man to grow his family's vegetables.
It was a terrible mistake to sell them off but my daughter lives in an ex-Council house and it is 100% better than a poky, badly- built modern home.
And it has a downstairs loo as well as a family bathroom.

They are not all like that, unfortunately.

Ours is an early- 1930s council house, and it is poky and was very cold and damp until extensive work was done only ten years ago.
It is hard to find takers for houses like ours now when they become vacant, because of the lack of space - even more so since the introduction of the bedroom tax, as 'full' occupation as dictated purely by number of bedrooms can result in more inhabitants than can be seated in the tiny living room - and usually means no upstairs toilet/bathroom either.
Dangerous too by modern standards - very steep, narrow staircase (unlit at the bottom) and an internal concrete step by the front door at the bottom of those stairs!

4 beds/3 loos (cloakroom, bathroom and en-suite) and a lovely cleaner to take care of it all!

Watermeadow, my daughter owns an ex council flat (feel the need to excuse her with NOT buying direct from the council) near Cambridge. Only 1 bedroom but LOVELY big rooms. The bedroom is the size of my living room.

It is worth more than my largish house in Newcastle!

I brought my family up in a house with one small bathroom and a separate toilet - how on earth did we manage ? My DD has a main bathroom, an ensuite, and a "children's bathroom" as well as a separate toilet . Nobody has to wait !

DH and I now have an ensuite, a family bathroom and another toilet. More than we need !