Over the past year at the corona cabin, we’ve been making quite a few updates and changes to our little chocolate box.
We gave the front porch a refresh, replacing the old-fashioned wood balusters with a cool wire system and painting the door and railings black.
We swapped in new appliances throughout the house, including replacing the original water filtration system and the original, incredibly noisy HVAC.
As I write this, someone is outside replacing and staining pieces of cedar siding that got destroyed by the woodpeckers and carpenter bees.
We’re slowly coming to the end of the initial list of projects we wanted to undertake here at the cabin.
But there is a project that is still on our not-immediate-but-eventually project list: replacing the toilets in our two bathrooms.
And, oh my.
As someone who has never shopped for toilets before, I had no idea there were sooooo many options. Like, a lot of options.
- Do you want a one-piece toilet or the traditional tank and seat setup? Or what about a tankless option?
- What sort of flushing options do you want or need? Gravity flush or pressure assisted? Or you could really splash out and get a dual flush model.
- What bowl shape can your space accommodate? Do you want a round or elongated bowl? Maybe even square elongated? How about that?
- What about the height? Should we get the traditional 15 inches or maybe a taller 17 or even 19 inches?
- How much water will the new toilet use (that would be “gallons per flush,” for all you lay people out there)?
- Do we want floor mounted or wall mounted (that one is pretty much already decided by existing plumbing and all)?
- What color do we want (again, this one is pretty much already decided – we have one white and one “almond” toilet already in the house, but maybe we just want to live less wild and go for two whites? Or one white, one biscuit? Or linen? What is the difference between biscuit and linene? I don’t know!)
- Do we want a discreet quiet flush model?
- Where do you want the handle? Right, left, top? If we go with top flush, do we want oil rubbed bronze or brushed gold?
- What about slow close seats? That seems like it might be nice, right?
This is a lot more than I expected to have to ponder. And the stakes feel very high here. It’s an important part of your daily routine, so you want it to be the best you can afford. But—and here’s another thing I never knew—toilets can get really, really expensive. Sure, you can go with a pretty basic model at around $100, but once you start adding in all these nice-sounding features, it can really get up there, like, $1,500 range. Generally, for a one-piece, elongated, single or dual flush, comfort height, soft-closed seat model, it’s around $400 to $600.
A fully-loaded TOTO toilet with dual-flushing system, heated seat and air purifying system? That will set you back $14,000. (BUT, it does clean itself, which I argue makes it totally worth it.)
Plus, I mean, how often do you really replace a toilet? Not very often. So you want to make sure you get it right. You don’t want a toilet that’s going to be obsolete in a year or two. You want the latest toilet innovations and a commode that’s built to stand the test of time.
There’s also the tricky issue of disposing of the old ones. How? Where? Will the trash guys just take them?
And so, the toilet replacement project is at a standstill. Clogged, if you will, by indecision on my part and an unwillingness to spend silly amounts of money. Maybe we’ll get to it in the spring.
1) Housewives and Olympians love a home improvement project (see: Heather Dubrow, Chateau Sheree, Moore Manor), and the busted Rio Olympic Village certainly sounds like a major home improvement project. Not only have there been a ton of complaints about the lackluster accommodations, but several countries have apparently 
