Fitting a Close Coupled Toilet (Guest Bathroom)

Kevin says that plumbing is a thankless job. If you do it correctly, it’ll all be covered up and no one will ever appreciate your flawless joins and straight pipes. He’s right. Plumbing is one of those things you don’t want to think about it. Thinking about it usually means there’s a problem such as a water leak. But despite this, Kevin and Louis have been hard at work on the plumbing for the guest bathroom including fitting a close coupled toilet.

This particular toilet is new, as we don’t currently have access to another second hand one. We decided to get a standard close coupled toilet. (I drew the line at one of those toilet systems with a plastic cistern). The cistern on this one is thankfully manufactured with ceramic and although the handle is quite cheap and made from plastic, we can always replace it at some stage, giving it a bit of an upgrade. So, I’m quite happy with the purchase. (We bought the strangely named “Neon” toilet from Build It)

Installing the Close Coupled Toilet

Of course, building with containers means its not so easy to hide plumbing pipes behind the concrete and tiles. Our installation was similar to the concealed cistern toilet installation, but this time, at least, we didn’t have to worry about the weight of the toilet hanging on the brackets. So, the toilet does not require much for installation all.

Kevin decided to build a wall out on which to mount the toilet. All the plumbing pipes can hide behind this wall, and will provide some access should anything go wrong. It’s going to add to the design and style of the bathroom too. The plan is to continue this step out, in the wall, along where the basin will be mounted, which will create a little shelf for things like hand soap. Making this step was easy. Kevin welded in some angle iron on which we mounted fibre cement board. We will then tile the fibre cement boards.

This way of mounting the toilet has been a great idea. We are easily able to hide all the water pipes to and from geysers, basins, showers, baths, etc. It’s going to be quite busy behind there, but it’ll all be in one area before branching off to various fittings. We have also put in a water valve which we will be able to access from under the basin. If we do spring a leak, it’ll be easy to close off the water in just this section for repairs, rather than the whole house at the main water supply.

The Plan for Flooring

I may have mentioned that the original flooring in this particular container is quite beautiful hardwood, so we are going to sand it smooth and finish it, likely with resin, for our bathroom floor. I’m extremely excited about this as I just know it is going to look stunning. (You might want to sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss out on that blog post!) That does mean, however, that we’ll have to cast concrete for the shower floors. In preparation for this, Kevin has cut out a sections of the boards for this next step.

Cutting out the shipping container floor also gave us an opportunity to see how damp the ground was under the containers. It’s dry, despite all the rain!

The bathroom is far from finished, but our newly installed toilet is actually usable, which is awesome. I am very much looking forward to progress on our guest bathroom. The space has turned out to have such a warm and welcoming vibe to it, even as it is, with all the dust and cobwebs.