In truth, restrooms were rare throughout the Victorian era. The Victorians turned their bathtubs and basins into pieces of furniture by encasing them in wood. There were no mixing taps, showers were unusual, and there was no separate shower enclosure. The only place to wash was in the tub or basin.
When baths did appear in houses, they were often used by all members of the family even if they didn't eat at the table. The children might use the bath while their parents read or talked. The elderly could be given a sponge bath or shower.
Restrooms did appear in houses but only for the rich. Most people went outside to take a break from work and play. A Victorian house had no where to go except the kitchen or the garden.
It wasn't until the late 1800s that older residences were converted to incorporate restrooms. Only in the 1900s were all but the smallest houses built with an upstairs bathroom and toilet.
The first electric lights were introduced around this time too, which meant more space was needed for storage of lamps and batteries. Since toilets required a lot of space, they were usually located in the basement or lower level. This is why you will often find old photographs of homes with outbuildings next door or across the street - these are their basements!
There are two types of toilets: water-powered and electric. The earliest examples of toilets can be found in ancient Egypt and Greece. These were natural toilets such as holes in the ground or trenches with grass covering them. In the Victorian era, toilets were mostly still found in outdoor facilities since there was no need for privacy. Even in indoor facilities, people would use squatters' bars instead - these were large bowls placed in public areas like at rest stops on long trips over the border into Canada where people could go behind trees or other hiding places to relieve themselves.
As time went on, toilets became smaller and more efficient, allowing more rooms for other things in the house. By the 1900s, every room except the kitchen had its own toilet.
Bathtubs connected to gas water heaters were standard in most Victorian homes' bathrooms. In homes without water heaters, the water for a bath was heated in the kitchen and carried all the way up to the bathroom. Porcelain tiles were used in the baths of many Victorian residences. They were often white with blue or green glazes that depicted flowers or landscapes.
The bathrooms were usually located behind the front door of the house. They usually had one toilet and one or more washbasins. If there were more than one bedroom, then each room would have its own bathroom. The walls of the bathroom were usually covered with wood or plaster panels. The floors might be wood, tile, or carpet. A window would open onto the house if there was no yard, or it could be a door into a closet. The hot air from inside the house would move toward the ceiling where there might be an opening for venting smoke or letting in fresh air. The cold air from outside the house would move downward toward the floor.
Bathrooms were not only necessities for cleansing yourself after a long day but also places where you could relieve yourself before going back out into the world. Bathrooms contained toilets, which removed waste by gravity through pipes to sewage tanks or lagoons where animals disposed of them. Before the advent of sanitary plumbing, houses did not have separate toilets for men and women. There were usually holes in the floor where people could relieve themselves.
Full indoor plumbing enabled not just the bathroom, but also the dressing rooms, which were incorporated into every single-family row house beginning in the late 1870s. Because there was only one bathroom in the entire home, these dressing rooms were handy for washing up. To Victorian eyes, the bathroom itself was a marvel. It had white walls and a tiled or marble-clad floor. A bath, shower, and toilet were included. The hot water came from a boiler, which was usually located under the floor of the hall outside the dressing room door.
Before this time, houses did not have bathrooms. They had "sculleries", which were small dining rooms where food was cooked over open fires or in ovens. Sculleries often had glass doors that opened onto a side yard or an alley. There was usually no separate bedroom for servants, so they too had to use the same facilities as their masters. Even the richest people did not have bathroom fixtures until well into the 20th century.
The average price of a house in London in 1841 was £5,000 ($100,000 today), and it wasn't easy to get money out of banks at that time. So most people lived in apartments, which were little more than large rooms with a kitchenette attached. These were usually found on the upper floors of buildings with servant quarters below. In 1841, an apartment cost between $15,000 and $20,000.
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