Not that he would really do it, but,
it's always good to learn something just for in case, right?
Let's say when people buy new house here, on the leaflet they would describe the house basic detail as 3 bed, 2.5 bath with 2 car garage and basement, something like that.
3 bed, of course means 3 bedrooms.
2 car garage means the garage can park 2 cars
2.5 bath means two and a half bathroom.
wait! what is it mean "a half bathroom"? just half the toilet? can you seat on it then?
when people describe bathroom here, they would say 4-piece bathroom or 5-piece bathroom.
what it mean is that they break down each item in the bathroom
a sink
a toilet (john)
a shower stall
a bathtub
these are the basic 4-piece bathroom
But, (there is always a BUT) there is a tricky part.
People here spend a lot of time on grooming (not just for pets), woman has to do make-up and do their hair while man has to shave and this and that, which, all of these procedures take place in front of a sink in the bathroom.
End up couples always fight for the usage of the sink, so, nowadays we have double sink in the master bathroom, oddly, it would count as TWO piece, because, they have to do two plumbing work for it.
So, a 5-piece bathroom would be
double sink (two sinks),
a toilet,
a shower
a tub
The half bathroom is a bathroom that only consist of a toilet and a sink (do not have shower/tub inside) mainly for guest use. Thus, it is called a "half bath" because it only serve half of a "bathroom" functions.
While, the other 2 bathrooms, they would be full-function bathrooms.
Usually, one would be located in the master bedroom to make it a Master suite (means you don't have to go out of your bedroom to go to bathroom), and the other one would be for the share usage for the other 2 bedrooms.
If the 2nd bathroom is located between the 2 bedrooms with doors on both side, then it would be called a "Jack & Jill Bathroom", means they both have direct access to that bathroom, they do not need to go out of their bedroom to go use the bathroom.
The only down side is that you have to remember to lock the doors all the time, otherwise, people can come in from the other door when you are doing "big business"!?
Back in the days, builders were more generous on footage, this is a 80's bathroom
you can see that they build the shower stall and bathtub side by side
but it just takes up space.
So, later on, they create something called "shower and bath combo", like this :
it is a factory made acrylic product, builders just have to insert it into the bathroom,
so now, the original separated shower stall and bathtub combines into one
(a much cheaper option and save a lot of space)
but, they still call it TWO piece when they have to do plumbing one time only
(that just show you how "business mindset" work)
Now, after 30 years, the trend is going back again!!! (go figure)
people want individual shower stall and bathtub,
unlike the 80's, people want to go for high-end furnishes now,
like this
they want to have huge shower stall with tile to the ceiling
this picture here is a two-person shower stall
all those knobs and shower heads on the wall are jets
for shooting water to different parts of your body.
they also have another shower head called rain shower, like this
this shower head is installed on the ceiling
to mimic the effect of you "showering under rain"
surprisingly, it is a big deal to them.
For me, when I use it, I feel like "something's wrong with the water pressure"
water is "dripping" out of the shower head and I don't feel clean afterward!
Because they have to run plumbing up into the ceiling, you would have to pay extra charges for this style of shower head.
and one day, I notice something.
Like the picture above, the faucet (the thing you turn on the water)
is located on the side wall right around your waist height, right!
do you see what I see here in this picture?
all the home improvement show here in Canada,
when they build a shower stall, they have a faucet close to the ground!!!
why?
so, we go ask people (google)
here in Canada, because they are high up on latitude (close to north pole)
it means most of the time, it's cold here, by cold I mean -30C
so when people take a shower, they would go inside, turn on the water,
wait awhile for the hot water kicks in, and they would turn on the bottom faucet,
use their foot to test the water and see if its hot enough,
then go in, use the toe to turn off the bottom faucet to start taking a shower.
What so funny is, we both notice it for awhile already,
and we both didn't say anything until one day, I could not suppress my curiosity any longer,
and I ask him and then he tell me, he had that question since long ago, too.
The other thing to proof how cold it is here. In most bathrooms,
they would put down a heat-mat under the floor tile, so you won't step on cold tile after shower.
Coming from Michigan like us,
we had cold long winters too but it's not a norm there at all.
I guess after 6 years I will be able to tell you the difference between here and there?
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