Roughed In

A toilet is one of those things that you take for granted until you don’t have one to use and it’s not like anything else could do the job. It is a fairly simple design that hasn’t changed much since the early 1900’s. It is probably one of the most used and most unappreciated pieces of furniture in our homes. So imagine my surprise when I actually enjoyed spending an entire day researching and shopping for a new one.
In theory there is nothing wrong with the one that was already in the bathroom but since we had to take that out to do the floors anyway and I had been playing with the idea of replacing it I decided that it was now or never. In truth I just didn’t like the design of it, it was very low profile (it was actually longer than it was tall) and had an elongated bowl which meant that when you were sitting there you would be looking directly at the underside of the new pedestal sink that will be right next to it and your knees will be practically touching the tub across from it.

I have been trying to find a balance between style, sustainability, and my budget thru this whole process and in very few instances have I been able to make all 3 meet, I am very happy to say that this is one of them. I wanted one that was chair heights, water sense, & round bowl but with some kind of angular lines either on the tank or on the pedestal part so that it would go with the new sink and the hexagonal shaped floor tile. The other catch was that I needed it to be 11” between the bolts and wall which turned out to be the real difficult part. We went to two different stores and all the toilets had the “roughed in” dimension at 12”. When after several hours I finally asked a salesperson if an 11” toilet existed he explained that “roughed in” describes the length between the stud and the bolts on an unfinished wall. Seems like the silliest measurement ever but apparently this is common knowledge among the remodeling insiders.

Kohler "Wellworth" toilet

Once we solved that issue I was able to find a toilet that I am very excited about, something that I never thought I would say. It is everything that I was looking for and am looking forward to actually installing it and seeing how it looks in the room.