1. This pink bathroom (via Retro Renovation) from the late 1930's is pretty close to what a lot of us probably grew up with. But what is that tiny sink for? Brushing your teeth! It's a dedicated "dental sink." I guess people figured there would be less risk of germs spreading if your hands and your mouth didn't share the same sink....not a bad idea, now that I think of it.
2. This second bath (via Create and Smile) from the turn of the last century seems pretty self-explanatory, except for the small flat-topped tub in front of the sink. Believe it or not, at one time a foot bath was standard-issue for every indoor bathroom. Why? Even with indoor plumbing, people didn't bathe every day and a tiny foot bath used less hot water to freshen up after a long day of work.
3. Finally, this last early bathroom illustration (via 1912 Bungalow) from the Standard Plumbing Supply Co. includes a sink, a tub, and the previously mentioned foot bath (presumably the toilet is out of sight). It raises the bar with a cage shower--where water is forced through the pipes of the "cage" and you get spritzed from all around--and a sitz bath. What's a sitz bath? It's kind of like a bidet, except you submerge your lower half in the tub and soak. I can only imagine this was another hot-water-saving feature like the foot bath.
So, as you can see, we've really pared things down over the years. Most of us would consider a bathroom complete if it had a toilet, sink, and even just a shower, so maybe the tub is the next "standard"-issue fixture to go. What do you think? Could you live without a tub? Which formerly standard fixture would you like to see have a comeback?
Image Credits: Retro Renovation, Create and Smile, 1912 Bungalow
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I would be heartbroken to see tubs go. It's a luxury, especially in areas with water shortages, but a good soak after a hard day is just heavenly.
Actually, you're spot on - bathtubs are already being phased out of hotels, so I'm sure they're going to be a rare luxury in homes soon:
http://www.etravelblackboard.com/article/119091/hoteliers-say-8220there8217s-no-time-for-a-bath8221
I wish more American homes had bidets. They make so much sense to me.
I fear for the tub! I find the number of apartment renovations with only a shower revolting. I like a tub to soak in, to warm up in when I'm cold, to read in...won't live without.
I love the looks of tubs but whenever I've had one, it never got much use. Had a separate tub & shower in a huge master in a house and the tub was a major dust collector, wanted to rip it out and have more storage.
Wouldn't really want to take a bath in a hotel. Eeewww.
I find a shower stall so much easier to maintain and keep clean. Jacuzzi tubs are the worst, it easily gets moldy around the jets.
Now, what I really want is a hot tub for the yard, that I would use daily.
How are you supposed to wash a baby or toddler in a shower? That seems super claustrophobic to me.
I wouldn't miss a tub, I can't remember the last time I took a bath. I love the dental sink, though! Bring that back :)
I would actually like to see urinals become more popular, think of all the water they would save!
I don't think tubs are going to fade from homes any time soon. If you have children you need a tub.
I am with the pro-tub people. I love baths.
And tubs are useful: last week I had hives from an allergic reaction, and soaking in a cool baking soda bath was the ONLY thing that helped the itch. Same deal with hot baths and colds/flus or muscle aches.
Plus one cannot read magazines and drink tea while showering.
Love this post and its pictures.
Oh, in #3 it appears the toilet is way off to the left side in a second area/room.
As someone with back problems, nothing beats a nice long soak in hot water with epsom salts. I definitely need a tub.
Like AKwinter, I would like to see urinals as standard features in bathrooms. They're in 99% of all public restrooms, why not in the home? A low-flow urinal uses about a pint of water per flush whereas a low-flow toilet uses about a gallon per flush. Not to mention they're cleaner and easier to use.
Like Uccellini said, bidets make sense.
Urinals are especially good for men with poor aim. More surface area!
@Sam I Am, I think you meant to say urinals are in 49% of all public restrooms. ; )
I think it's odd that given what a wealthy, and relatively water-wealthy, country the US is that bidets aren't more common.
A urinal is a good idea, too. There was a family at the end of my childhood block with 4 or 5 boys, and they installed a urinal in the attached garage. Most of the other moms on the block seemed to think it was a good idea, but not sure if anyone else picked up on it.
My friend lives in an apartment where her only sink in the bathroom is that tiny.
Bidet please! I really loved living in Spain and Mexico where these were more standard issue. What can I say; I'm an old-fashioned lady. Someday when we can afford the upgrade, we'll get a fancy Japanese toilet seat with plumbing attached for a bidet-like effect.
I like the idea of the cage shower. I'm sure it uses more water but think how quickly you'd be rinsed off.
I can see where urinals would make sense, but the smell of it would bother me. I like to have the toilet lid down when not in use, so to see/smell a urinal would not be for me.
I like the footbath idea. I'd love to have one instead of the plastic tub I currently use for pedicures. They're so cute!
I am so feeling the foot bath. Living in a dusty part of the world with lots of open windows, you gotta rinse your feet off from time to time. :)
in Brazil is usual to have shower only, and if u have babies or they get on the shower or they use their own bathtub, like tummytub for one example.
and here is usual to have a small hand sanitary shower besides the toilet that we use the same as a bidet function..
pratical :)
I want all of those features! (Except the sitz bath - it reminds me of post-birth recovery ... shudder.) One day I will own a house. Sigh.
I don't think bathtubs CAN go anywhere. Sure it's a nice luxury to have if you're an adult and I wouldn't want to live without one, but from an actual practical sense...like slm1234 said, how are you supposed to wash a baby/toddler in a shower? Eventually your tiny baby gets too big for a sink, even a big one and having to clean them via shower seems ridiculously awkward and incredibly impractical.
I can live without a bathtub if I know someone who has a hot tub. I just bought a condo in St Louis with that exact same pink sink/tub/toilet combo! In a year or two we'll be putting those fixtures up for sale for the retro folk.
I'd love to have a pink bathroom. It also makes me so sad on home improvement shows when they rip them out!
I personally don't have kids so the tub issue is not a concern. But... I have many friends who use a shower only, children included. Similar to what Mandy F said, they put a tub in the shower or take them into the shower with you (once they are a little older).
When I visited South Africa, I found it was more common to have a tub but no shower than the other way around.
What we see a lot around here is multiple bathroom houses with a bathtub only in the master (separate from the shower) or only in the bathroom that serves the other bedrooms (if it's a shower over tub). The remaining bathrooms are shower-only. This actually makes a lot of sense to me but I wouldn't want to live with no bath.
Tubs stay! And I LOVE a bidet...
Standard size tubs are too short for me to truly soak in, so they're a waste as far as I'm concerned. On a bad back day, I tried folding myself into our short tub and ended up just being annoyed...and cold on the upper half of my body! I told the hubby that night we were getting a hot tub. And now that we have one, I could easily do without what passes for a tub in most homes, including mine. I'd gladly give it up for more storage cabinets.
We're currently considering a gut reno on our TINY master bath (seriously, it's like 5 x 6 feet) and thinking of taking out the bathtub completely and making a walkin shower. As there is still another bath with a full tub, would this turn people off when we eventually sell the house??
Our dream house will have a 6 foot clawfoot tub. Both the hubby and myself love taking baths, and I lived in a 1880s Victorian and still fondly remember taking the most luxurious baths in that thing...
How did you ever get a picture of my grandparents' bathroom?!? She loved pink; he was a dentist. I've never seen a dental sink anywhere else....
i actually don't have a shower where i live now and personally i don't miss it because i'm not a huge bath person (i get bored just sitting there and the water gets too cold too fast), we're renovating a new place that i'm going to be renting from my parents and i told my dad that i would be fine without a bathtub but that i wanted the shower to be large enough for a small bench so i could sit in it and scrub let the water beat down on me since i find that more relaxing (plus the water never gets cold in a shower, well unless you use it all up, but now there are those tankless water heaters)...of course, my best friend is horrified by my idea, but she's a *major* bath person...honestly though, i doubt that bathtubs will ever be completely gone...
Cage showers were also called needle showers. They were standard equipment for the richer folks - if you ever go to Glensheen Mansion in Duluth MN, they have an excellent example.
Bidets/sitz baths were standard equipment due to the recurring event of childbirth (big families were the norm rather than the exception). Soaking that area for the weeks following birth was hygienic as well as comfortable.
The tub could disappear and I'd never miss it. Never been a fan of soaking in my own filth . . . .
a foot bath would be genius in the mud room/ back entry of a home. Soak your kiddos feet when they come in from the sandbox, etc.
I wouldn't regret the demise of the bathtub. I rarely have that kind of free time to just sit and soak. But I do agree, if you have more than one bathroom there ought to be a tub in one of them.
My domestic partner and I have the compromise solution. We have twin master bedrooms with our own en suite bathrooms. Each of us has a (small) shower stall, and our bathrooms are connected to an adjoining tub room. It's an air tub which is like a jacuzzi except ir shoots jets of air through the water instead of streams of water. The upside is no water is inside the jet system, so there isn't anything to sterilize periodically or mildew issues. The downside is that the air sometimes is cool and chills the bath water over time.
We have lived there almost three years. He has never used the tub. I have used it maybe 10 or 15 times, usually after a rigorous day of planting in the garden. (It's nice to have available, but not a necessity to us. But for eventual resale, we figured it would be a good feature.)
I love tubs and taking baths, but my boyfriend's flat, his dad's house, and his mum's house all have no showers. Only baths. I stayed there for the summer and every time we went on an overnight trip, the B&Bs would always have a shower and it was always so refreshing to finally not be forced into a bath. (Although, upon returning home from any visit, I end up continuing to take baths for at least a week until it peters out into showers.)
As long as there are babies and children, there will always be tubs.
My parents' bathroom in an old house had an enormous walk-in shower and it was wonderful. They also had a jacuzzi, but it wasn't used particularly often, and it had to be cleaned regularly in order for it to function on the odd occasion that it was used.
At a different house, one of the bathrooms had a shower only, rather than a tub, and it was much more practical. Easier to get in and out without slipping, easier to clean. I would much prefer just having a shower instead of a tub.
Without a tub, you'd put the dog in the shower; it's no harder than getting them into standing water, if they're trained.
You'd have your shower head on a hose so you could adjust it and hit buckets, dogs, or childrens from all heights and sides.
I like a bath, but I don't use it often and almost never for anything but "I want a bath today."
I wouldn't mind tubs being fazed out in apartments only if there were suitable public bathhouse options. unfortunately, as i fear this will never be the case in US, i will cling to my tub like a mad woman.
american style bathtubs are kinda gross, so i'm OK with those going. i'd love a pre-wash, japanese immersion bath though.
Though walking in and out of a shower is (for some) easier than getting in and out of a tub, many of the elderly and disabled develop problems with standing and need to clutch a rail in the shower. Many don't have the funds to install a rail, or the money/dexterity for a flexible shower hose. Sitting on a stool beneath the spray is pretty miserable, too, as you need some ease of movement to get yourself clean.
Personally, I love the psychological luxury of standing in a shower and having that water pound into my back. But I often need the luxury of a soak in the tub, with some atmosphere at work (music, candles, bubble bath, a book).
So to me, it makes no sense to see bathtubs phased out. One person's practicality is another's pain.
Living in water-free Australia (I know we've had floods, but after 10 years of drought we're very cautious), the whole bidet & bath thing seems so very wasteful.
My sister & her husband take their baby (once he'd outgrown the baby bath) into the shower with them - ane he loves it, trying to catch the water & feeling it on him.
This article is full of misinformation......dental sinks, foot tubs, sitz baths and cage showers were by no means "standard" in period bathrooms. The pink tiles that are referred to as "1930's" is in fact midcentury, post-depression through the sixties. Yes, these fixtures and colors are fascinating to our eyes today, but they were considered LUXURIES that most people couldn't afford to have in their homes. Nice try, though.....a little more research rather than a romanticized article would better suit your readers.
I love the look of bathtubs, particularly free-standing ones, but the truth is, I never, ever use them. My husband and I are strictly shower people - even my toddler showers now. We are renovating our bathroom now and we've decided to remove the tub and replace it with a really nice, big stall shower instead.
A sitz bath wasn't so much a water saving devise - it was used more for giving a warm water soak to the nether region of the body. After surgery (ie post-childbirth episiotomy), it was common to soak the area in warm water several times daily to keep it clean and promote healing. My son was born in 1987 and my doctor advised it then.
Since having a separate fixture for this function was not common in most bathrooms, the regular bathtub was used - run the water and wash legs and feet, then fill the tub with 2-4 inches of warm water. Sit until it cooled off. My doctor even told me to set my blow dryer on 'cool' and aim it at the affected area to dry it - less irritating than using a towel.
My first apartment had a tiny, tiny bathroom with a dental sink (full size would have blocked the door). The cat lounged in it on hot days to cool off on the porcelain. Thanks for the memory.
@ Linda Pinkser
Do you live in the Tower Grove area? It seems like every place I looked at there has a pink bathroom. One landlord even refereed to the bathroom as being Tower Grove Pepto pink. Didn't seem to see any pink bathrooms anywhere else but that area.
Whenever I look for a new apartment, one of my two must-haves is a tub. I have a gorgeous claw-foot tub that I cherish.
My landlords in the big house- I live in the carriage house- have a bathroom very similarly outfitted to the third picture. That cage shower is A-MAZING- comes complete with a swing-out bidet faucet down below, that will launch you out of the house if you're not careful.
There were '30s pink bathrooms (ice pink and black bullnose tiles, aaahhh Art Deco you're my favourite thing...) but that pic doesn't look like one of them to me, looks post-war, probably '50s.
I'm in the "I have to have a bath" camp, not only because I love taking a bath at the end of the day, but because it's done under doctor's orders.
While I love baths it always makes me cringe when I see how much water I'm wasting so I rarely take them, plus its just one more thing to clean. As is I only take baths while staying at (nice) hotels so I doubt I'd miss it.
As for bidets, they're just kind of a waste of space considering you could just install a high-tech toilet or if you don't have the money and are really into that kinda thing just fill up a small pail of water before you go and have it nearby to rinse yourself off afterwards. A lot of older Asians do the latter.
The bidet. It makes perfect sense.
Without a tub, you can put a small to medium dog in the little tub next to the washing machine (easier on the back too). Baby tubs can be placed in the shower and some kids (like my one-year-old) insist on standing up in the tub anyway. Also, if you have little kids, you will never have time for a bath yourself. I'm ok with tubs going away and I certainly don't see the need for more than one per house.
I'd happily live without ever having a bathtub in my house. They're of no use for actually getting clean on a daily basis, and I really have no time or interest in ever taking a bath - just sitting there in dirty water? boring!
A nice hot shower on the other hand...
Thank you for this interesting post. It's really cool to see how people used to live.
That cage shower actually seems like luxury showers today where you have multiple sprayers. Personally, I could do without a tub, I always shower, but they are good for kids and pets.
I have been told that bidets (or a hose hooked up to the toilet) in the middle east are very common because there isn't enough water for toilet paper to flush. When they do use toilet paper, it must be thrown in a bin.
Also, a hot bath during a cold winter day is absolute heaven.
I've always been amazed that Americans haven't embraced bidets. We're known for being overly clean-conscious, but choose not to clean our most important parts? I also wish that tubs were not required to make a "full" bath. I would love to get rid of my tub and only have a shower, but I'm not going to undermine my house's value. Silly, silly... but those are the rules.
I should like everything about baths in theory--warm, relaxing. But it just feels like....marinating. Every now and then I get determined to learn to like them but I can't!
And, like others, once many of my friends' babies get too big for the sink/baby tub they just take them in the shower....so the demise of the tub is fine with me!
"How are you supposed to wash a baby or toddler in a shower? That seems super claustrophobic to me."
When I was a kid, before parents had those plastic baby bathtubs, I remember moms mostly bathing infants in either the kitchen sink or in a wash tub. They'd line the sink or washtubs with a towel lining the bottom and rolls of towels around the side and making a back support. When kids got bigger, it was the washtub or sink without the towels, and eventually into the shower or bathtub.
Baths are gross! As for children 'needing' them I say rubbish. It will kill a mamas knees and back, and all the splashing will rot out your floors. Do you know how many kids drown in a bathtub every year? (over a hundred just in my state alone) I bathe babies in the kitchen sink and toddlers on up take showers.
i don't see how anyone can sit in a tub long enough to read a book. i get bored just thinking about it. its soaking in your own filth.
You gotta take into account all the boomers who will be aging over the next few decades.
My mother was in a wheelchair for a while before she died, and couldn't even raise her arms for the last few months. I don't know what we would have done if there had been only a standard apartment-sized shower! I guess we could have put a plastic lawn chair in the shower stall, but then there would have been no room for me or a nurse to get in there to bathe her.
Because she had a tub/shower combo, it was relatively easy. I just got a shower nozzle with a sprayer, and we bought a standard bath transfer seat (they are made so that two legs go inside the tub and two outside. You can adjust the height of the legs so it doesn't wobble. You sit the person on the plastic seat, buckle them in, and then slide the seat over so the person is positioned over the tub).
The best solution would be if all homes have bathrooms like they have in nursing homes - the kind where the whole room has a tile floor that slopes gently towards the shower drain. That way, there's no lip between the shower and the rest of the room, so you can just roll the wheelchair into the shower area.
Sadly, this mostly exists only in retirement communities. Because so few homes are designed to be universally accessible, it forces seniors to move into retirement communities that are isolated from other generations. This especially sucks for younger handicapped adults with children, like a lot of the returning veterans. I know they have a hard time finding affordable homes that are accessible AND located in good neighborhoods for raising kids. Heck, plenty of handicap-accessible apartments are aimed at seniors and don't even allow families with children.
I found it interesting that two of the three examples show the toilet in a seperate room or nook. I always thought that was a recent 'high end' development.
As a 'proud' owner of a pink cast iron tub, I loved the first image. (1930s Arts and Crafts bungalow, but the bath and kitchen were 'redone' in the 1950s - so I have embraced the vintage-ness of it all LOL)
Thank you Apartment Therapy for a short and sweet history lesson. p.s. i would hate to see bathtubs go, although unless you live by yourself you almost always need to give them a good scrubbing first. blech.
Most people I know in Paris already live without a tub. First apartment I was in had a tub, and a friend came over to use it since he didn't have one. Looks like my next apartment might even have what I call a port-o-shower. :-( I like tubs.
"Standard"? No. The whole reason they appeared in glossy mag spreads was to convince consumers they needed those things.
FYI, My original story on Dental Sinks: http://retrorenovation.com/2010/12/10/dental-sinks-in-mid-century-bathrooms/
Bath tubs are great luxury and will be in more upscale homes. Americans with kids still need to learn that yes, you can wash a child without a bathtub. My daughter has taken showers since she knew how to stand. And by the way, less soaking baths, better and softer skin.
A late comment but ... Showering is much harder on your skin than tub bathing. Get the dermatologist to explain it to you, because there's not enough room here. And I would LOVE a foot bath, because if I don't take a bath before bedtime (my customary habit) then I stick each foot into the hand basin and wash it, and I'm getting too damned old to do that!
My husband and I fell in love with the bidet concept during our honeymoon. If there was any way we could fit one into our bathroom, we'd do it in a heartbeat.
I'll have to dig up the pic, I found one of those sitz baths in Buenos Aires. I had never seen one before, I wanted to put some cushions in it and make it a chair, 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' style :)
Ah butt tub...amazing.
Also, I hardly ever take baths but for some reason I find shower stalls disgusting and refuse to rent a place again that has only a stall and no tub.
Hmm, it's funny because around here you don't need to have a bath tub but you definitely need to have a bidet to make a full bath. Not having one can actually put a dent on the value of your house (as my family learned the hard way)
Another one with a young child (4 yrs) and there is no way we could do without a tub. in fact any apartments we looked at with just a shower was instantly vetoed because we need a tub for him. Plus I love them for warming up in the winter as well as another poster, also I sometimes get horrible pains in my legs and a hot bath is the only way to ease the pain. Its great for other sore muscles. I also find shower stalls disgusting... unless in a secondary bath even then they really creep me out but I find it more acceptable.
ah and yes my son CAN stand in a shower and does take them sometimes but he doesn't prefer it... (me either since i get soaked helping him wash up) also where i live almost all the homes have a tub and we build all new homes with a tub, the only time you run into a shower only is when a landlord cut a house up into apartment and slacked in the bathroom or didnt leave enough room..
I always think it's funny when people say baths are gross because you're sitting in dirty water.
These days the average American just doesn't get that dirty sitting behind a desk or walking around a store. Factor in how often we usually wash to keep up our appearance, and people are pretty darn clean.
Anway, I'm going to agree with all the other bidet fans. Pretty shocking Americans don't use them more!
There are already a number of posts saying this, but would like to add that I, also, would never want to be without a soaking tub! Although I almost always take showers, a tub bath is a wonderful way to relax!
Yes, tubs! We just re-did our main bath (the only one with a tub). It's tiny (a 1928 home) and the contractor and a real estate agent we had consulted with both advised us to give up the tub in favor of more closet space.
They lost. As a runner, I couldn't stand the idea of not being able to soak, and as a former mom to small children, I couldn't picture a three bedroom home without a tub for little ones.
How a shower only person bathes babies, toddlers and small children very easily - you install a shower system that has a head (for you) and a sliding handheld unit (for the kiddos). Actually, I bathed them as babies in the kitchen sink but when they were big enough to sit up really well we went into the shower, sometimes together and sometimes not. Bath time in the shower is fast and efficient making way more time for stories.
In a lot of Asia, instead of being 'standard fixture', the bath tub is the luxury option --- not just in homes, but even in hotels. So is the shower stall. (My rowhouse actually came with one. A lot of my neighbours quickly dug theirs out. My 50-year-old aunt, who's NEVER encountered a bathtub in person before, wondered if mine would be good for washing sheets and such --- washing machines are common, but not must-haves either)
Most homes and even hotels actually have a wet room or sunken area in the bathroom to serve as shower tray for washing. So it's not claustrophobic. Also, 'telephone showers' are common --- flexible hose with a head to rinse yourself off or hang off the wall to rain down on you.
Indeed, older homes in South Asia, for example, often didn't even have showers. They had a tap at waist-to-chest height in the designated bathing area, and a bucket and mug (or other small urn-like vessel for scooping out water from the bucket) were used for washing yourself. Children old enough to stand simply got stood under the taps to wash off! (Younger ones and dogs were washed in a small plastic tub filled under the same tap.)
Even now, though showers are becoming standard in middle- to upper-class homes, the mid-height tap remains. And there is NO bathroom without a plastic bucket and mug in it. For one thing, it's the easiest way to wash your feet as soon as you come in (Asian homes are often shoe-free areas).
This 'bath tap' is also used to fill buckets for mopping floors (done daily around here, all over the house).
Toilet roll holders are also not 'standard'. Paper is more the exception than the norm even in upper-class homes --- there's a tap next to the loo and a mug nearby to rinse yourself off, and this goes for both Western 'thrones' and Asian squatting toilets. Bidets don't ever seem to have caught on here either. In more modern homes, though, you can now get a handheld 'hygiene attachment' identical to a diaper sprayer for cloth nappies, which attaches to the water supply for your toilet cistern. So the really low tap near the toilet would be our fixture going the way of dinosaurs!
I was loving the dental sink and the foot tub. Though I don't really care for the tub- I prefer showers, I would hate to see it go... it would be to weird to not have or see one.
I know a couple who have a cage shower in their very old Soho building. And they love it.
Soaking in a tub and having a hot bath with massage is a luxury that will not be phased out.