Interconnected bathrooms are disturbing. Let’s explore to learn why this concept, which may seem like a good idea, is disturbing.
Reason 1: it’s interconnected, and it’s a bathroom. Think about that. The goal should not be convenient entry for more than one person into a bathroom which is the space where privacy is really THE main goal.
Reason 2: Locking the door is awkward. Jack wakes up in the middle of the night to pee. Jack opens his bathroom door within his own bedroom, enters his shared bathroom, turns on the light, and shuts his door (creak, slam, jiggle jiggle). Then he goes and locks Jill’s door (jiggle jiggle). Jill has a nightmare of a monster attacking her from the bathroom as light emanates from below the door, and she hears that unmistakable sound of pee followed by a drip drippity drip, SLAM ... yeah, Jack is a good brother and put the toilet seat down for his sister...that was the SLAM Jill heard. And finally pshhhhhhhhhh clank goes the faucet as he washes his hands, then jiggle jiggle creak as he exits the bathroom and goes back to bed (while Jill is sweating from the nightmare Jack just caused).
Reason 3: entering the bathroom from your brother’s room is awkward. Did you notice in the commentary above that Jack remembered to put down the toilet seat, but he forgot to do something else? He forgot to unlock Jill’s door when he was done! So, in the middle of the night, when Jill needs to get up to pee, she needs to go out to the hall to enter Jack’s bedroom to get into their weird shared bathroom. Jiggle jiggle creak as she opens Jack’s bedroom door. Ewww grosssssss she mumbles as she steps in something unknown but likely disgusting on her brother’s bedroom floor in the dark. Then BAM $&@#! she yells as she runs into the dresser drawer that Jack didn’t close in his dark bedroom. Yea, that’s right, your sweet innocent daughter just swore, and it’s your fault because you gave her a creepy interconnected bedroom. Now Jack is awake and yells at Jill to get the $&@#! out of his room. Both kids are now awake, screaming at each other, then they become too tired to do well in school, then they can’t get into college, and they cannot become employed because of the filthy language they developed because of their shared bathroom. Then you have two 30-something trucker mouth kids still living at home and still sharing their bathroom. It’s a self perpetuating problem. Ok, back to the point... The argument ends, Jill shuts Jack’s door, locks it, does her business, and storms back into her room, locks her bathroom door to ensure her creepy brother doesn’t wake her up when he uses the bathroom, and she tries to get a little sleep before school the next morning. She will not get into the deep sleep REM phase where the info in her brain is properly sorted, stored, and easy to recall later. All the studying Jill did for her test the night before was now just a waste. She eventually fails her test, loses interest in school, and soon becomes a goth chick and listens to death metal music and rarely leaves the house.
Reason 4: getting locked out of your own bathroom is awkward. Once Jack and Jill get accustomed to their sibling entering their room, they start to lock their bathroom door from the inside when they are done peeing to prevent the sibling from coming into their room later. The next person who needs to use the bathroom can’t get in because they locked themselves out from their own door and still forgot to unlock the other door. Now you have two locked bathroom doors. At 3am, they come to wake you up... DAAAAD! DAD! DAAAAAD! Or... MOMMMM!!! I can’t get in the bathroom. You reluctantly wake up, step in the gross thing on Jack’s floor and bump your shin on his dresser, yell profanities, and look for something to stick in that little hole on the doorknob to unlock it. You teach both kids how to unlock it themselves, so they won’t wake you up again. You can’t get back to sleep before your 5:30am alarm while wishing you would have listened to your architect about not building a Jack and Jill bathroom.
Reason 5: it is awkward to walk-in on your brother while he is peeing. Both kids just get accustomed to unlocking their door with the pinhole method you taught them in Reason 4 above, and inevitably, a sibling will see things they never wanted to see when they pick the lock and enter without knocking. It will eventually happen.
Reason 6: are you really still reading this? Don’t do a Jack and Jill bathroom. Just put the door in the hall, and avoid the problem altogether.
Solution: for the ideal shared bathroom, we can design a situation where Jack can be taking a shower in complete privacy while Jill is brushing her teeth at the sink and even using the toilet in a private toilet room. It takes up the same space, and our creativity will leave your family well-rested, good-mannered, and your kids will have the life skills needed to be able to move out of your home well before they turn 30 :)
If you’d like to learn more about our design process, visit www.josharch.com/process, and if you’d like to get us started on your project with a feasibility report, please visit www.josharch.com/help