Double Bathroom Sinks: Why?

Once the temporary bowls are removed and the sinks installed this will look great.

From time to time I like to flip through the TV channels to see if anything catches my eye. I usually do this during the first intermission of hockey broadcasts when Don Cherry is on. Sometimes I settle on something, and sometimes I don’t. Every now and then I’ll stick with one of those home renovation shows on HGTV as they usually make me feel good about being a renter. Mind you, ripping the bejinkers out of a person’s home only to uncover another $10,000 worth of work is needed before the original project can proceed must be a contractor’s dream.

I know that there certainly are places where more than one sink is required … These places are called barracks and asylums …

But one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the North American obsession with bathrooms. When you consider that this is the room in which most people spend the least amount of time, vis a vis bedrooms, kitchens, dinning-rooms and so on, an inordinate amount of debate and planning goes into bathroom-related decisions. My back of envelope-type statistics indicate that it seems it is women who are the real sticklers when it comes to bathrooms.

Regardless of the number of residents in a house, one single bathroom will never do. At a minimum an additional powder room or half bathroom must be available. Is this in case the main loo is occupied and someone gets caught short and is in dire need of a pee? Isn’t that what the kitchen sink is for?

WW2 barracks at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

Being a male, as long as the bathroom is inside, and clean, has good water pressure and a sink with mirror, and a lockable door, it will suffice. I can understand someone being concerned with the overall size of a bathroom if claustrophobia is an issue, but the complaint that gets me is the lack of a second sink. I can grasp the concept of having a double sink in a kitchen for any number of reasons – and no, I don’t mean the aforementioned emergency urinal .

Maybe I’ll catch on one day, but frankly I don’t care if there are one, two or a dozen sinks in the bathroom, I’m not sharing. Bathroom time is ‘me’ time.

Women on these shows are constantly going into raptures at the sight of twin sinks that have been installed in a newly renovated bathroom. I just don’t get it; a bathroom needs only one sink considering it is a one-person-at-a-time kind of place. I know that there certainly are places where more than one sink is required because more than one person at a time uses the facility. These places are called barracks and asylums, and, much like Las Vegas, what happens in those bathrooms stays in those bathrooms. Even penitentiaries provide inmates with an en suite in their cell.

Maybe I’ll catch on one day, but frankly I don’t care if there are one, two or a dozen sinks in the bathroom, I’m not sharing. Bathroom time is ‘me’ time. Now if you will excuse my while I slip the latch on the bathroom door.

DCMontreal – Deegan Charles Stubbs – is a Montreal writer born and raised who likes to establish balance and juxtapositions; a bit of this and a bit of that, a dash of Yin and a soupçon of Yang, some Peaks and an occasional Frean and maybe a bit of a sting in the tail! Please follow DC on Twitter @DCMontreal and on Facebook, and add him on Google+