We have 8 bathrooms in our apartment. 🛀 🚽 😬 It must be because I paid my penance for growing up in a house with one tiny bathroom shared by 6 people…
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Eight bathrooms are wholly unnecessary for our small family and much more work than they’re worth. Even though our apartment is big, it’s not THAT big and they really didn’t need to install a bathroom around every corner. However, Saudis do have their reasons for multiple bathrooms…
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From a cultural standpoint, Muslims highly value purity and cleanliness. They have a cleansing ritual before prayers, use bidets, and emphasize personal hygiene as a whole, so I can see why multiple bathrooms would be helpful, especially when families are quite large.
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From a practical standpoint, more bathrooms allow families to be more hospitable to guests. Many homes have two sitting rooms (and even two entrances). If a gathering is happening, men will congregate in one sitting room and women will be in the other. Because the house is created to be divided for these purposes, it stands to reason there will be bathrooms in each section. Maids’ quarters should include a bathroom too.
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As for our bathroom collection, we turned one into storage and closed off two others. We use three bathrooms downstairs (all are half-baths) and two upstairs (one in the master bedroom, one with a tub for kids).
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My teenage self wouldn’t believe you if you told me I would have a bathroom beside my bedroom so I wouldn’t have to traipse downstairs and through the house in the dark while half-asleep, if you told me I would take relaxing showers instead of rushing bc of someone’s inevitable knocking, or if you told me i wouldn’t have to race to get to the bathroom first after a long road trip. Just don’t mention to teenage me that I’ll have 8 bathrooms to clean.
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