Raising Poop To A New Level

I am trying to get back to writing more often. Lately I've had to deal with a lot of time consuming alternative treatments. It all takes time. Precious time.

Nearly every day I try to fix or improve something on the new old fifth wheel. I am just now starting to get kind of comfy with her.

The first few weeks of ownership in December left me wondering if I had made a sound decision. On the flip side I contemplated reselling the rig while also realizing I may have to live with my mistake for a very long time.

As time goes on and I get the rig in tip top shape, I am falling in love with it, feeling like I did get a whale of a bargain.  Like most everything I've owned, it has required a lot of sweat equity.

There were several surprise problems a few quite comical. The toilet was too low! A big nice china toilet, no plastic but it was 3 inches from the wall and way too low. It was made for a bathroom that has a step for the toilet. Like my old motorhome the toilet sat on a step in the bathroom because the black holding tank for waste was under there and that gave it extra room.

This bathroom has a flat floor and should have had a taller toilet. Duh. The cost of buying and installing the correct toilet plus getting the plumbing relocated a few inches back was going to be a bit pricey. I was happy enough to keep using the existing toilet except some days it was very hard to get up off of it. It was like sitting on a very low step stool then trying to srping up vertical with no room to move. My bathroom closet houses the toilet alone and it's very tiny and efficient. A litte too efficient!

The solution was to buy a 4 inch raised toilet seat with a lid. i wanted the 5 inch raised seat, but couldn't find one in my price range with a lid. Are these seats designed by men?

Women like toilet seats. There is a cabinet in the tiny closet. I don't fancy opening the cabinet and having things fall down the open toilet.

So I had to settle for a 4 inch seat but it came with my must-have lid to close it.

 This was available from Amazon. 

Turns out it's surprisingly compfortable. It bolts to the sides of the existing toilet after removing the lid on the old toilet. This one came with it's own attached lid.

It more or less blends in nicely. Best of all it's functional. Getting off the toilet is simple now.

I busted up my legs in accidents years back and they are sometimes problematic. A low toilet was a problem as the closet is so close there wasn't room for the 4 legged cane or the walker to assist. Installing handrails wasn't an option either as we couldn't find enough supports in the walls to do that effectively.

One of these days I will splurge for the proper height RV toilet and get a plumber willing to put it closer to the back wall to give a wee bit more room in the closet.

At least the RV builder thoughtfully put a window and a skylight in there, so it's not at all claustrophobic.  I can sit on the toilet and wave out the window at the neighbor. I told her I was sitting at my desk. Har har har. If she ever visits inside, she will be a tad surprised.

 The bathroom door has a built in brass towel rack but I mostly use it for my long hair accoutrements. You can see the toilet is a few inches from the back wall. The original lid was removed to make room for the 4 inch raised seat with its own builtin lid. When the door to the left is closed, there is a huge  beautiful beveled mirror.

 The dirt stain on the wall was removed, sorry I didn't do it before taking this picture. I cleaned the wallpaper from floor to ceiling. It's in near perfect shape now. So one can sit, poop and have a view of the outdoors. There is a metal mini Venetian blind for the window which when closed provides complete privacy. The window has a limousine tint. In this picture the bottom half of the window is slid up and open.

There are wall switches for the overhead exhaust fan which needs an impossible to find blade. The other switch is for overhead fluorescent lights for serious cleaning and inspection. I plugged in a night light in the outlet just beyond the toilet paper roll. The night light provides plenty of light at night without the harsh glare of full on lighting.

The builder included an elegant solid oak cabinet for spare toilet paper and cleaning supplies. All the huge valances in the trailer were removed except the bathroom one. I kept it as a silly reminder. At least it was hung high enough not to interfere with the natural light. It thanksfully didn't come with the huge long sides like the others did.

I couldn't resell those ridiculously pricey big valances because each one was custom made into assorted different sizes. Grrr... such a waste of time and effort on something that to be looked gaudy and tacky.

My toilet has a foot flush. Something I had to get used to. Now I can flush it after standing up with my right foot or turn around and use either foot to flush. The white flexible plumbing attaches to a sprayer that can be used for cleaning and rinsing the toilet. It came that way, I didn't add this feature.

There you have it!

More than you ever wanted to know about my poop problem.

Now I can stand up without aid. Phew!