I enjoy an hour soak every now and then, but all of the "spa" baths and "hotel" bedrooms are mostly about selling the idea of "awayness" from the family. That can be important for busy heads of households with active children. But, the % of space devoted to that has become huge in proportion to the rest of the home and a detriment to well designed (and efficient) homes. When the "master suite" is 1/4 of the home's square footage, it had better perform more services than keep my tookus clean and house a mattress in which I spend 8 hours asleep and unconscious to whether or not I'm in a 10x10 or 20x30 room.

I see it two ways. It can be a ploy to get you to renovate by having you visualize a vacation/spa atmosphere. From a more personal view, people are so stressed these days that anything labeled spa would be welcoming.
I'm with you. I never think to take a realizing bath, as I prefer to shower. That said though, I do appreciate a nice looking bathroom.

Our MB is tiny, and our hall bathroom is not all that much bigger. I would certainly love to have at least somewhat larger bathrooms (I'd even be happy to have extra 6" between the toilet and tub that we have in the hall bath, in the MB!). I love the look of the spacious and beautifully appointed bathrooms that forum members have posted (some are just jaw-droppingly stunning), but then I think about cleaning them, and realize there is at least one benefit to my little bathrooms! :)

I think that bathrooms should be nice looking, but they should also be Clean-looking, and sometimes that is hard to achieve if the decor is elaborate--say like in a powder room.

I have been in some powder rooms that are so fluffy and puffy and decorated that I wonder how they are maintained--although this type of powderroom seems to have pretty much disappeared.

The one accommodation that I have made to relaxation is to put a dimmer on all the lighting. Sometimes I like to take a shower with soft or dim lighting, especially when I have a headache.

This may be a bit irrational but I feel like my hands get cleaner if the water pressure can be turned up higher and that toilets that flush vigourously are "cleaner"..slow pouring of water into the sink and the lethargic quiet swirl of some toilets unnerve me a bit for some reason.

I absolutely agree. I occasionally take a soak in our one tub in the house (deep soaker tub in the main/guest bath actually), but beyond that I really prefer to be in and out of the bathroom, regardless how nice. It's certainly enjoyable to have pleasant finishes and a relaxing style in a bathroom when you're in a hurry in the morning, but I don't have time to clean a large bathroom. I would enjoy just a little more square feet so my significant other doesn't have to squeeze past me to get to the shower when I'm drying my hair or brushing my teeth. Otherwise, I'm happy with the smallish size we have. I feel lucky to have two sinks (even though it's only a 60" vanity) and a shower off of our master bedroom. It means we can get ready in the morning without leaving our master suite (especially if we have guests over for the night). I can think of many other rooms in the house (or in a dream house) that I'd rather use for relaxing. If I had a house big enough to have a massive master suite, I think I'd rather have more closet space or a nice reading nook instead of a gargantuan master bathroom.

I have a large bathroom and here are the things I love about it; soaker tub that I use at least three times per week to soothe my aches and pains, separate shower for morning wake-me-up and cleaning, two sinks so that each person has his/her own real estate for personal grooming products and devices, and separate water closet for privacy and containment of any aerosolized bacteria.

I've lived with a smaller bathroom with no problem, but I enjoy my larger bathroom very much and would hate to give it up.

I'm right in the middle.

I love to soak in the tub - water soothes and relaxes me better than anything else. I've always been that way - when I was a child, if something troubled me, I'd go run a bath.

And daily grooming bores me, but of course it has to be done, so if the room is appealing and comfortable, I don't mind the time.

But I don't like great big bathrooms. They can be harder to heat, which works against what I'm wearing in there - and somehow they don't feel private, even if they really are. Also, the fewer square feet I have to clean regularly, the better. Which is why I don't want clutter or furniture-grade cabinets, either.

My DH and I have had separate bathrooms since we sold our first little bungalow, and so a great ol' big thing wouldn't mean a thing to us. The only thing we like to share is a big soaking tub, which we don't have here, but I've always thought it should have a little room of its own.

I love a pretty, EFFICIENT bathroom with a nice shower, vanity with good storage, good lights and mirror, and comfortable toilet. I DON'T need or want floor space in a bathroom.

We purposely designed our bathroom to be smaller so that we can keep it warm when we shower. It is not a place to hang out...we have the whole rest of the house to do that in.....

We did a master bath remodel 2 years ago and built a wonderful 2 person shower and a double vanity. We love to be able to shower & get ready for the day together. We removed a whirlpool tub, a single sink vanity & a terrible corner shower.

I'm with Pal and Tuesday. My main priorities are clean and efficient. As long as there is nothing in the bath that annoys me, such as a lack of storage or working space, I'm as relaxed as I need to be in there, lol.

If I see anything that needs cleaning, I am NOT relaxed, lol. I constantly see HGTV installing chandeliers in the bath. All I think of when I see that is that I could never keep it clean enough for my satisfaction!

I think there are very few people that actually do the soaking bath with lit candles thing. Canadians are much bigger on baths than Americans and most of HGTV is in Canada.

HGTV has a lot of Canadian homes. Canadians, are very big on taking baths.

In our previous home, we had a 10'X13' BR, and had to go across the foyer into a weird, triangular bathroom with one sink in a 72" vanity.

In this home, we turned a 21'X31' family room with a half bath into a master suite. We added closets on the long wall, so we still have 17.5 feet of width. The bath has 2 sinks in about 80" of vanity, a whirlpool tub for DH, a double shower, and 2 toilets, plus storage. We cannot have a dance in there, but I appreciate the airy SPACE it provides.

I do agree that some of the rooms I (used to) see on HGTV were a lot of wasted space. I clean my own house, so......

Nancy

This has been one of the great dilemmas for me for the past six or seven years. I bought my first home five years ago and started looking through magazines and watching hours on end of HGTV and DIY Network a couple of years ahead of that.

I simply can't understand the need for a livng room in the bedroom or a bathroom big enough to entertain in. When I bought my house, it was being used as a double. I had contractors come through to give me quotes on turning the upstairs kitchen into a master bathroom. Any of them that suggested expanding the bedroom or the bathroom into the other rooms were automatically dismissed. I have been in homes that have mini living rooms, including beverage stations, in the bedroom. I have seen a bathroom on HGTV with a bench that started next to the bathtub and wrapped around the wall to the vanity. Really? Are you expecting an audience? I will go so far as to throw the "social kitchen" into the mix. I wouldn't even consider entertaining in my kitchen. That's not what it's for. But maybe that comes from growing up in a home where walking straight into the kitchen from off the street was otherwise known as "justifiable homicide".

I don't have any children to "get away from" but, if I did, I would probably send them to THEIR room rather than retreat to mine. My bedroom is big enough to sleep and dress for the day in. My bathroom is big enough to have a tub and separate shower with a vanity. There are no double sinks, double shower heads or separate toilet rooms because I believe in having private time, which includes any time I spend in the bathroom. I use my bathroom time to plot out my day, make mental checklists and, on occasion, solve world peace. I don't need or want anyone chatting me up. When it's his turn, he will be afforded the same privacy.

I'm sure all of the people with large bathrooms and large bedrooms and large kitchens all have reasons for needing that much space but they are reasons I will never understand.

I love my large bathroom. I have a big infinity tub w/ chromatherapy and air jets. We have a shower spa system and two sinks and a towel warmer and radiant heat and a music system. I need and want a big bathroom because I do love to take baths and take an hour bath daily (don't use the chromatherapy a lot but use the rest of it).

In our winter FL house, I ripped out a master closet to make a 10x13 bath and am doing a closet addition to allow for a big closet space. I had a hard time fitting everything into an 10x13 bath and ended up w/ only one sink instead of 2 (we never get ready at the same time anyway).

This post was edited by beaglesdoitbetter on Sat, Mar 30, 13 at 1:08

Well, whatever time I DO spend in the bathroom, I want to really enjoy. It used to be hideous, and though still not finished, is a huge improvement. In fact I am now aiming to have EVERY room in my home, except the kitchen, be more 'spa-like'. That said, I live in a ridiculously small home. There is no master anything. One small bath off the small hall. Small everything, small yard. Small tax bill, too. Using top quality materials in small spaces creates quite an impact. Although I love looking at other's redo's of huge spaces, I'd only add a couple feet total onto my house overall if I could, and it wouldn't be onto the bath unless for a separate shower. Now that would really make it spa-like!

Well, Beagles does it right for this function. Those must be nice baths.

For housing design as a whole, the wheel continues to turn. Thank goodness. Looking at tract home plans where master suites are literally larger than the main living/dining area is actually painful to me. Studies are now showing that most people who devote much of their lives working for the mortgage payment spend very little time in oversized bedrooms and baths across the wall from the adequate-only living and dining spaces they live in. They sleep, shower, and dress in them. And know it.

An exception to this general lack of use might be where a compact sitting area in a master would function as an "away space" for adults in those family homes too small to provide another; 7x7 could do nicely,or even smaller.

Back in the 1980s, though, before this silly trend exploded we were still doing efficiency baths and tiny 3/4s for the main bedroom, and who wants to go back to those?

I'm pretty sure things are going to stabilize in a much more sensible middle area. Especially in the painful period where energy prices rise before we finally implement renewable sources. Of course, shows like Househunters, where almost every, typically young, couple has large bedrooms on their must-have list, aren't going to hurry it along. It'll be their counterparts looking for their second home.

BTW? I planned a compact attic suite for us but let our contractor talk me into raising the roof pitch substantially to 12 in 12 (i"t'll cost very little extra"). That's how we ended up heating and cooling a 900 square foot master suite with central sitting area, bathroom we stroll across, two walk-in closets, an extra little room our small grandchildren sleep in when they visit, and a bedroom that's just a bit too large to feel comfy to us. Yes, we do go up early to read before sleep, as planned--but always in bed. The club chairs and ottoman get dusted now and then, same for the charming under-roof tub niche that for some unknown reason our little girl cat likes to hang in. We LOVE our large shower. That 4x6 of it we'd do again just like that.

I've never been a fan of the 'spa-like' description as most spas I've seen are much more edited in style than what I like. I want my bathrooms to have color and interesting decor and prefer a 'more-is-more' style generally. No "fluffy and puffy" stuff tho! LOL

I don't spend even a total of an hour a day in my bathrooms. I prefer to shower rather than soak mostly. My house has 3 1/2 baths and while none are tiny neither are any huge. A huge bath would be wasted real estate for me. I prefer to have a larger kitchen and LR. However I do know not everyone feels that way and it's likely a selling feature to have at least one huge bathroom which I expect represents a desired lifestyle for some buyers even if most don't use it much.

However, one of my dreams is to have an ensuite large enough to contain a small decorative wood stove. It would be lovely to enjoy the heat of a wood stove, heat towels near it, and watch the flames through the glass door while soaking in the tub. Wood heat, for me, has such a different feel than that from any other source.

In one of my previous homes there was a bath so large I called it 'The Ballroom'. It looked nice but took too much of my time to clean and we never did entertain in it so it was wasted space! ;D LOL

I feel the same way about most huge rooms. I find it interesting there are so many people who have huge bedrooms or 'great rooms' and post asking how to make them 'cozy'. Most rooms over a certain size are not to 'human' scale and it's difficult to make them feel comfortable.

"The club chairs and ottoman get dusted now and then"

LOL, I do the same with the 2 wing chairs in my bedroom altho do like that the room is large enough for them. When I go to bed early to read I do it in bed, not in a chair. My bedroom is not so huge it feels uncomfortable tho even with a cathedral ceiling.

To each their own!

I consider myself pretty big on taking baths as well, probably equal to my Canadian friends and surpass the number of bains par jour faire mes amis français. I often take 2 baths per day and always 3 per day in summertime if I work in the garden but I don't want a room the size of Rhode Island. In fact, we have a so-called "spa bathroom" and it is cold in winter, regardless that I turn the heat so high the rest of the house feels like a sauna.
All I want is a room somewhere... far away from the cold night air..
The best part of a big bath is toilet is totally a room away and far from my toothbrush and, tucked away in a little niche, are the quarters of our furry king of royal Persian blood, who is not a social cat, and who does not wish to encounter the likes of commoners while dining and dumping.

"All I want is a room somewhere... far away from the cold night air.."

You don't need the one enormous chair?

Just 11111 ca-ba-na boy...serving warm towels and wine to me...

I have a fairly large master bath, it annoys me. The deep tub is a pain to clean and the only thing I'm cleaning in there is dust, I don't take baths. I, too, see the shows where the bathroom addition or make-over adds value to the house. I don't understand it. Formal dining rooms seemed practical too. My formal dining room serves as my office. One new trend that makes sense is the larger open concept kitchen into the family room. My family likes to talk and cook together and hang out in the kitchen.

I have no desire for a bathroom that takes up a lot of real estate. In fact, I see the huge master bedroom/bathroom trend as rather selfish when kids are crowded in a 5' x 9' bathroom.

As for as space to get away, when you have a large family it is nice to have a little sitting area in the bedroom. My kids were spaced for enough apart, that I might have had the teens in the downstairs family room and the younger kids in the gameroom upstairs with no place for me to go. :)

I don't understand all these baths with the tubs right in front of the window. I mean, they're great to look at, but not practical for me. First of all, that's where the cold drafts come from and secondly, you have to step into the tub to open the window.

I open windows all the time and love fresh air. And whether the window is open or shut, every a.m. I brush my teeth kneeling on the bench in the bathroom looking out the window at the world....it's part of how I greet the day. That would be so hard to do if I had to step into the tub to do it.