“Bungalow Bathrooms”, by Jane Powell

Powell, Jane, and Linda Svendsen. Bungalow Bathrooms. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 2001. Print.

This book is, without doubt, the best book on bathrooms I have seen yet.  Forget the “Bungalow” in the title – it is not limited to just Bungalow-style houses.  Powell goes through the entire history of bathroom facilities from the Romans to recent times.  She ends that introductory part by pointing out that bathroom technology is not much different than the 1910s and 1920s, and that after you’ve replaced your old toilet with a low-flow version, a one-hundred-year-old bathroom is perfectly usable.

The book is full of wonderful pictures of bathrooms from museums and private homes, but also manages to pack in a ton of useful information.  Powell breaks down her recommendations into two kinds; “Obsessive Restoration” and “Compromise Solution”.  I’m sure my husband appreciates me being told that some things are obsessive, and it’s nice for an author to show two approaches without presenting her way as the only way.

I hadn’t fully understood that the standard white subway-tile walled, white hex-tiled floor bathroom with white fixtures was standard across all kinds of houses from the late 1800s to the 1920s.  This “sanitary” style was designed to promote health by easy cleaning.  The exuberant bathrooms of the 1920s and 1930s started in 1926 with the advent of coloured porcelain for fixtures, which led to the brilliant green, pink, blue, and every other colour of tile you have seen in old bathrooms (my grandmother’s was pink and black, although it dated from the 1950s).

I’ve renewed this book at the library twice, which means I’ve had it more than two months now, and I’m still sorry that it has to go back tomorrow.  I’ll be going through it again, any time I consider changing anything in a bathroom I own.

Works Cited

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• Croutier, Alev Lytle. Taking the Asters. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group, 1992.
• Hart-Davis, Adam.  Thunder Flush, and Thomas Crapper. London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1997.
• Horan, Julie L. The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishing, 1997.
• Jester, Thomas C. Twentieth Century Building Materials. Washington, DC: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1995.
• Lambdon, Lucinda. Temples of Convenience and Chambers of Delight. London: Pavilion Books, 1998.
• Lupton, Ellen, and J. Abbott Miller. The Bathroom, the Kitchen and the Aesthetics of Waste: A Process of Elimination. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992.
• Maddock, Thomas. Pottery. Trenton, New Jersey: Thomas Maddock’s Sons’ Company, 1910.
• National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Well-Appointed Bath. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press, 1989.
• Ogle, Maureen. All the Modern Conveniences. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns-Hopkins University Press, 1996.
• Pathak, Bindeswar, Ph. D, Litt. D. History of Public Toilets. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Public Toilets.
• Prentice, Blair, Helaine Kaplan, and the City of Oakland Planning Department. Rehab Right. Oakland, California: City of Oakland, 1978. Reprint, Berkeley, California: Ten Sopeed Press, 1986.
• Sears Roebuck and Co. Consumer’s Guide Fall 1909. 1909. Reprint, New York: Ventura Books, 1979.
• The Editors of Sunset Books and Sunset Magazine. Sunset Bathrooms Planning and Remodeling. Menlo Park, California: Lane Publishing Col, 1983.
• The Victorian Bathroom Catalogue. London: Random House, 1996.
• Wilson, Henry L. A Short Sketch of the Evolution of the Bungalow: From its Primitive Crudeness to its Present State of Artistic Beauty and Cozy Convenience. Los Angeles, n.d. Reprint as California Bungalows of the Twenties. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1993.
• Building with Assurance. Chicago, Morgan, 1921.  Reprint as Homes and Interiors of the 1920s: A Restoration Design Guide. New York: Sterling Publishing, 1987.
• Wright, Lawrence. Clean and Decent: The Fascination History of the Bathroom and W.C. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1960. Reprint, London: Book Club Associates, 1971.