Provisions for infant care in bathrooms

[Stephen Tashiro]

What, if any, features in a bathroom does a family with an infant child find useful?

In fixing up a house for sale, I must consider what to do with a bathroom. I'm not sure whether the future buyer will have an infant child, but I wouldn't want to omit any simple feature that would be useful to such a buyer or employ some design that would be repulsive to them.

The bathroom of the family home of my youth had cabinet with flat top that was the diaper changing station. Is that a useful feature? Or do people nowadays use portable tables and carts? - or the gizmos that fold-down from the wall that are seen in public restrooms?

[Jim Koepke]

One of the rules of remodeling to sell is do not spend more on an added feature that will not be recaptured when selling.

When my son was an infant, we didn't have a specific changing station. He was attended to wherever and whenever a change was required.

I do not recall seeing permanent special features in homes directed at buyers with infants. A family without infants and not expecting more might actually be turned away by something they see as costing them more only to be removed if they do purchase the home. Having an infant is usually a temporary condition. My folks had five children. Four of us were born between 1947 and 1952. So the need for features to handle infancy was at most 7 or 8 years. Unless there is a baby boom taking place among apartment dwellers you may be looking in the wrong place for desirability improvements.

You may find some good information with a search on something like > best home improvements for resale 2017 <.

One thing I recall from reading about real estate is how many home buying decisions are triggered by the buyer's first site from the curb. The outside view is the first thing people will see when looking at multiple listings. It has to be good enough to get them to look inside. That is why some say "curb appeal" when referring to something that is expected to sell quickly.

Bathrooms are important, but consider how if the woman isn't happy with the kitchen, there isn't likely to be a sale.

jtk

[Stephen Tashiro]

One of the rules of remodeling to sell is do not spend more on an added feature that will not be recaptured when selling.


Yes, but I'm not approaching this purely as a problem of profit maximization. I want to know that the buyer isn't getting a house with irritating problems or deficiencies that could easily have been avoided. It's remotely possible that a future buyer will be someone known to other people I'm dealing with - the heirs of the estate, friends of the neighbors etc.

[Todd Mason-Darnell]

With my last infant turning 11 in June, I am not sure if I am an expert on contemporary infant needs, but since this is the internet, I will not let anything minor as "lack of expertise" stop me for offering an opinion. :)

I can say that until we got to potty training, the biggest use of the bathroom for my daughter was actually bathing her. All diaper changes were done in her room on the changing table (or on the couch with a blanket down). We were pretty much the norm for all of the other parents. The only time we would take her to the bathroom to change her is if we were at a strangers house who was uptight or it was going to get "messy" (if you know what I mean).

My recommendation is not to do anything special.

[Brian W Evans]

I have a five year old and a twelve year old. Aside from putting locks on the toilets when they were toddlers, we didn't do anything to our bathrooms in any of the places we've lived, and we didn't have anything out of the ordinary in our bathrooms, either. Changing was done on the floor (or the bed, the back of the car, the lawn, etc., etc., etc.) or on some piece of specialized equipment, like a changing table on a playpen.

The only thing I think about regarding babies when I make plans for my home is to make sure I have at least one bathtub. Little kids don't shower, really, so a bathtub is a necessity.

[Wayne Lomman]

Special changing features are more of a public bathroom necessity. That being said, if the bathroom had space for extra counter top, it would be useful for changing nappies as well as other uses and would not appear locked into a specific use. We were more of the floor in front of the fire people. Cheers

[Jim Becker]

I've honestly never seen any accommodations like that in a private home bathroom....only public bathrooms...and would be wary of doing anything special in this situation because the expense wouldn't likely be regained in the sale.