House Walkthrough 5 - The Bathroom

Instagram and Pinterest are filled with posts of amazing bathrooms, dressed in marble with free standing bath tubs and heated towel rails. These are very nice indeed but they are invariably Western style with the sink, bath and separate shower all found in one room.

The Japanese bathroom is different with the sink situated in an undressing area that you enter before taking your bath in a separate wash room. The wash room is like a wet room with a standing shower area and a very small tub. In all but the smallest versions, the toilet is situated in a separate place entirely, the separation of “dirty” and “clean” spaces being very important to Japanese people. I was happy with a toilet in the bathroom area but apparently this is little short of heresy so it’s going to be across the corridor.

Our bathroom with separate clothes removal area (top) and wet room (bottom)

Honestly, I think I prefer the Western setup. Japanese baths are too small for a 192cm man and I still don’t understand why you get clean in the shower before having a bath. Perhaps it’s memories of playing rugby and then coming home to soak off all the dirt in the bath afterwards. Then again, it’s not unheard of for British people to have carpet in their bathrooms so perhaps it’s me who is the oddity.

Nevertheless, this is Japan and, thus, we are having a Japanese-style bathroom. One compromise that I was able to secure from my loving wife is that we are doing away with the hideous all-in-one plastic vanity unit that houses the sink. The builder is going to make us some simple cabinets instead. Much better.

The sink and clothes removal area. Note the absence of vanity unit!

We actually went to look at one of the biggest Japanese kitchen suppliers, Lixil, and were pleasantly surprised with how good some of their latest things are. I lived in an apartment with older Lixil stuff when I first came to Japan and the quality was pretty ropey. One of their setups had a Jacuzzi bath and large widescreen TV as well as various other cool things (mood lighting!). It was seriously impressive, but at $36,000, so it should be.

At this stage, we are opting for a small, very simple bathroom with no enhancements. I think it’s going to run to about $3000 which is barely more than the aforementioned “unit baths” found in very small apartments which have all things in one space (even the toilet!) I believe we’ll have the option to choose colours and some fittings later on so we may be able to make it look a little nicer or more interesting.

Overall though, it’s not a room that we want to invest an awful lot of money in and we have to make some savings somewhere. On the list of priorities, it just wasn’t that high up for us so, as long as the shower sprays water and it’s easy to clean, I think we’re ok (not that I wouldn’t have liked a Jacuzzi and flatscreen TV).