The hall sink

The door on the right is the toilet room
the wall on the left is at the stairwell

We have this interesting little area in our hallway upstairs. All Japanese houses have it. Our house at least makes sense because it is right outside the toilet room (another posting on that one), and so you can wash your hands easily. One house I lived in the toilet room was on one end of the hall and this little sink area at the other- totally did not make sense to me. But I am not Japanese- it must make perfect sense to them. I will have to ask some of our Japanese friends and see if they all answer the same way or have different reasons for it's existence. Ours is in a great location- right at the top of the stairs and by most of the bedroom doors- so I really have grown to like it and think it is very useful. We also use this area for teeth brushing. It is very interesting the molded compartments and shelving, but we have come to see it as normal now.