Change of Plans for the Toilet

I consulted with my Plumber Extraodinaire, Rick Littreal (Pyramid Construction), and he is game to see if maybe there is some way the toilet I ordered could perhaps fit. He persuaded the store owners to let him check out their showroom floor model of the toilet I ordered. He brought it over to see how it would fit. And the bad news is - it doesn't. Not only doesn't, but extremely doesn't. He will have to move the water supply line AND change the waste pipe (wrong size and requires a no-flange installation) AND the waste pipe is about 4" too far away from the wall! Here is is in the bathroom, seated on the waste pipe, and you can see that there is a huge gap between it and the wall. This design is just not practical for existing plumbing. I chose it because I like the way it and the sink have the appearance of "furniture" - this is what you see when you come into the house, and I like having it look like "furniture" rather than bathroom fixtures. But enough of this madness. I went back to the kitchen/bath store and asked the manager to cancel the order and find a subsitute that has a similar style.

I didn't think there would be anything quite like it, but he surprised me. He found one made by Duravit that had some quirks, but was a standard installation - if you don't count the water supply line. The toilet had a solid back, so the water supply line had to either be moved farther to the left or could come up through the floor as the god of plumbing decided to do in my bathroom. So I decided to go ahead and grout all the tile (ah, yes, I forgot to mention that I laid the floor tille) so either this Duravit toilet fits, or else we will just put in a standard boring pedestrian toilet like everyone else on the planet.

So the tile was down, and the grout went in. I used a darker grout on the floor because I don't want the grout lines to be a big contrast to the tile. I also laid it with pretty thin grout lines, just to minimize them. I love love love the way it looks. It is a dark grey, but it has a bit of brown in it, which helps it tie into the brick floor in the entryway. My cat, Sharky, loves it, too. In fact he was in the room throughout the entire tile installation. Here he is while i was working on the grout around the water supply line, and laying out the floor tile. I think I'll let him do the next bathroom.