All I Can Think About is Toilets

When my friends and I were teenagers, we went to a camp and got in trouble for flirting hanging out with the cute maintenance staff.  One night, while presumably rebeling again, we were watching shooting stars with the boys on the beach.  We all pointed to the sky, mesmerized as multiple stars flew across the sky every few seconds.  Then, during a quiet, peaceful moment the camp's go-to plumber boy let out a frustrated groan and remarked, "All I can think about is toilets!"  That's how I felt a few weeks ago when we decided to update two commodes in our house that were original to the house.

I don't care if a toilet still works, if it's more than 20 years old, it's nasty.  And nasty they were.  I'm pretty sure a giant cockroach was holing up in the one upstairs until we clubbed him with a shoe.  And the inspector told us that the downstairs one had a leak.  The seller was supposed to fix this, but he neglected to tell us that the floor below had rotted out and the pipe was cracked.  It was our first surprise snafu as homeowners.

Before installing the new toilet downstairs, we hired a contractor to replace the rotted subfloor and add supports, then we had to get a plumber to fix the cracked flange.  It was an unexpected few hundred dollars but in a way it's good we tackled it right away--better than falling through the floor in the middle of a "moment."

(Old, leaky toilet above, new toilet below)

We got new American Standard space-saving and energy efficient toilets (Cadet 3), but truthfully, I don't love them.  I love that they look better and no longer serve as a science experiment for growing mold, but the flush is finicky and the lid is super thin and will probably break in a year.  Also, I'm all for energy efficiency, but there is hardly any water in the bowls and that grosses me out.

I am happy, however, with the deal I got on toilet paper holders.  Updating from dirty brass bars to these sleek, silver modern fixtures was a bathroom breakthrough.  And I got them on clearance at Lowes for $3.95 each when they are normally between $12 and $16.

With all that out of the way, I'm done thinking about toilets.