Only now, 18 years later, have I become familiar with our upstairs bathroom

When we bought our house back in 2003, I had a dream that I was walking through it and discovering all sorts of long hallways and new rooms of which I hadn't been aware. The house just went on forever.

It's a decent-sized house for our family, but trust me, it's not that big.

Except I'm experiencing a little deja vu, as I'm only just now getting to know a room in the house where previously I had spent maybe an average of 30 seconds a week.

That room is our upstairs bathroom. Or, as I've often referred to it, "the kids' bathroom." The kids' rooms have always been upstairs, so that bathroom has pretty much been theirs over the years.

The only time I generally set foot there is during my weekly toiler paper rounds, when I happily restock each of our four bathrooms with TP. And that has been about it. I never used it to shower (or any other purpose for which it's intended), and it's not a room I've ever cleaned with any regularity.

Until recently.

By the time you read this, I'm hoping our master bathroom renovation is complete and it's no longer the case that the upstairs bathroom is suddenly the most popular room in the house.

As I type this, though, we're very much mid-renovation, so all showering and other functions are happening up there. A bathroom that rarely entered my consciousness previously is now the star of the show, as rooms in our house go.

I've heard reports that this bathroom is dirty and disgusting, usually relayed by one child blaming the state of it on a sibling. So a few days into the renovation, I cleaned it.

My conclusion: It wasn't exactly pristine, but I've seen far worse.

If nothing else, I have newfound appreciation for this full bath that has existed in relative anonymity (at least in my mind) since George W. Bush's first term.

Not that I'm ever going back in there, mind you, but it was nice to get to know a place that I'm paying for.

The pandemic has pushed me into a routine of laundry every other day and cleaning the bathroom on Saturdays

I don't know why it took the coronavirus to create this routine in my life, but ever since I've been home full-time starting last March, I have fallen into a nearly unbending routine of doing our laundry every other day and cleaning the bathroom on Saturdays.

Actually, on that last point, I don't clean the whole bathroom every Saturday. Most of the time it's just the mirror, the sink, and the inside and outside of the toilet. I reserve full bathroom cleanings (which include the shower and the floor) for once every 4 to 6 weeks.

The laundry, though, is thoroughly done every other day, almost without fail. To be clear, it's specifically the laundry that's thrown into the hamper in our master bathroom, which mostly belongs to me and Terry but occasionally includes kids' towels and other miscellaneous articles of their clothing.

When I first began this every-48-hour laundry thing, I would do it all myself. But then Terry began wondering where half of her stuff was, and eventually she had to tell me to just put her clean clothes into a laundry basket and she would fold them, put them away, and hang them up herself.

For some reason, I cannot figure out which of her stuff goes where. I'm sure it's not that difficult, but there you have it.

I can't stand to see an overflowing hamper, so I keep up with the laundry. This must be one of those things that helps me feel more in control of my life, much like my beloved to-do lists. If I do the laundry every other day, it can be finished in two loads every time and it's not that big a deal.

Not that three or more loads are a big deal, but I like to stay ahead of the curve.

As for the bathroom, well, as Terry once told me when I asked her how often the mirror, sink, and toilet need to be cleaned, the answer is always. Those three things can always stand cleaning no matter what. So Saturdays it is.

And no, for the record, I will not be coming over your house to wash your clothes or clean your bathroom. Just so we're clear.

Four bathrooms in our house and it's still not enough

Technically we have 3½ bathrooms, since the one off the kitchen is a half-bath. But the fact is, there are four toilets in this house, yet someone is always complaining.

Why? Well, for one thing, there are seven of us living here (six during the school year when Elissa is at college, but still...) No matter how you look at it, that's still more people than privies.

But there's also this: Many of us have favorite bathrooms depending on what we plan to do in them. Some, for example, will shower in the master bathroom, but they refuse to do so in the upstairs bathroom. Others will perform a certain bodily function only on a designated toilet and no other.

And no one except me seems willing to use the basement bathroom for anything. It's a full bathroom down there, and it works just fine if you ignore the shockingly low capacity of the toilet (let's just say you don't want to eat a large Mexican meal and then have to use our basement bathroom).

But really, it's a good bathroom. The problem is that when we first moved in 11 years ago, and admittedly for some time thereafter, no one used that bathroom and it got a little ratty after awhile. Like, spiders were in there along with who-knows-what-other-sorts of wildlife.

But now it gets regular use and I can assure you there are no bugs of any kind. I just recently washed the floor, shower, toilet and sink, rendering it perfectly acceptable for use by almost anyone except maybe the Queen of England. And depending on her personal preferences, even Elizabeth may be OK with it.

Still, the image of The Nasty Basement Bathroom persists, and as I said, no one takes advantage of its presence except me. Which is fine, but no matter what my kids say, it's a viable solution to the occasional bathroom conflicts that erupt in our house. (I will also admit it's pretty cold down there, but you learn to deal with it.)

My theory is that it's impossible for anyone to have enough bathrooms. I don't care how big your family is, I don't care how big your house is. You will adjust your hygiene habits to the point that even if you have 17 bathrooms, you'll still want the variety and comfort of that 18th bathroom you lack.

Of course, when I was a toddler, I lived in a house with six people and only one bathroom. But people were changing my diaper every day, so I really didn't care. But if the Tennants of the early 1970s could hack it, I'm sure the Tennants of the mid-2010s can soldier on somehow, too.