Bathrooms: who needs ‘em? Not me. Most people consider a home bathroom to be non-negotiable, but I’ve never been most people, which is why I’m sitting on a big pile of savings while they’re slogging away to pay off their so-called ‘essential’ renovations.
“Oh, but I actually needed my bathroom reno,” I hear you say. The tiles were falling off the walls. The pipes were broken. There was a ventilation problem. Trust me, I’ve heard it all before and there’s no changing my mind on this. You think you can talk me out of it? Ha. My mother has tried dozens of times to no avail, so why should the opinions of a mere stranger on the internet cause me to budge?
Even the very best bathroom renovations are nothing compared to the feeling of going off the map, and finding your own ways to get clean and expel waste from the body. That, my friends, is what I deem to be essential, and there’ll come a day when the wisdom of this is recognised. Mark my words.
My interest in this arena extends far beyond having or not having a bathroom. Laundry renovations for Melbourne homes have really taken off of late, which indicates a common belief that laundries, too, are deemed essential components of a home. Needless to say, I put that belief in the same category as the bathroom thing. Go proudly forth and wash your clothes in a stream, a puddle, a swimming pool – whatever you can find. That’s what I say. Reclaim the commons.
Don’t even get me started on kitchens, the least necessary living space of all. If you can’t figure out how to build your own fire, you don’t deserve to eat cooked food. Harsh? Well, yes, maybe a little. But what in nature isn’t harsh? We might as well just embrace it. To do otherwise, I believe, is to labour under the pretence of being beyond above the brutality of nature.