The Big Toilet Debate
I don’t know if you remember the big toilet debate. I think I may have mentioned that the one thing that we have debated and debated and yes… debated some more, was the toilet situation at the new house.
In fact, it was this issue that made me come up with the idea for You Decide – Design Dilemmas.
I couldn’t take any more weeks of going round in circles, researching on the internet, surveying the land etc., etc.,. I decided to let you guys make all the difficult decisions going forward.
For those of you that live in the UK and the US, most of you will think….well just plumb in a couple of units and off you go… what are you worrying about woman!
That may be the case back in the western world but out here, in our village, mains sewage is not an option.
Currently up at the Bee House we have a ‘long drop’. For those that don’t know what this is, it is basically a massive hole in the ground with a toilet plonked on top.
These are great, they don’t smell, they never fill up and often have a great view. I kid you not. In my time in Bulgaria I have owned several houses. A couple of them boasted amazing views from the outside ‘long drop’ toilet.
But, and here’s the thing. The one at the house is a little too close to the property (it was moved there when the old man of the house became ill) and there is only one. To have three of these we would need to dig three mahoosive holes in a garden.
In the house where we live, we have a septic tank, but this takes up space and has to have a pretty large drain field and everywhere we looked at the new house:
- We had veg to plant
- We had a pool to erect
- We had bees to locate
- We had a fire to dance around
The land is destined for vegetable growing and having fun (not poop). This, quite simply, was not an option.
We looked at incinerator toilets – WAYYYY too expensive and I’d need three… errrm “no”.
Then I started researching compost toilets. I’d rejected this initially as I was concerned about how that would work with guests. I wanted to make sure they didn’t smell. That I would be comfortable emptying someone else’s ‘discarded and fully processed food’.
After hours and hours of reading and planning, this was definitely the solution, but I needed to ensure that I could make this a ‘none-issue’ with my guests.
When you start researching topics like this there is an enormous amount of information out there and much of it is contradictory. There are so many options to pick from too, some that look like normal toilets and some that are hand-built sheds in the middle of the woods. They also range in cost to the same extremes.
That was until I found Strumpet & Trollop.
The name on its own was enough to get me to buy from them, but their designs, their approach, their communication, was absolutely a game-changer and I was sold. Check them out!
As usual though I needed to save a few pennies. Instead of buying one of their ready designed, made to order, fabulous toilets…I chose their kit so I could paint it myself.
Yes, I know I could have made it all myself, but sometimes I too just want someone to do it for me and I was not disappointed.
I ordered in the middle of December and needed them out of the UK before Brexit chaos took over. They made it just in time and I could not be more grateful to them for their attention to detail with everything.
Everything is included in their kits, even down to a tube of silicon sealant and some excellent, easy to understand instructions on how to put it together.
You Decide – Colour Choices
I ran a You Decide challenge for the guys that are signed up to my blog to choose the base colour and the materials I should use.
The vote was overwhelmingly for oil paints on black…so that is what I did.
These are the separate panels, before I put it all together.
Check out this short video of the fully constructed example… I love it!
I hope you like the result of the first one I’ve done. I have plans for the other two too – watch this space! I hope this has finally put an end to the big toilet debate 🙂
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