Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

| By | | 316 Comments

Selling A Kohler Toilet On Craigslist

Remember the almond toilet that came with our master bedroom (which we recently switched out for a taller and cleaner-looking white one)? Well, for a while the old almond guy – who looks oddly white in this picture below – just sat in our entryway. What, is that weird?

Old Toilet By Front Door

The reason? We decided to try our hand at Craigslisting it. Once John found out it was an over $1300 (!!!) toilet by Kohler (more on that here) he was convinced we could get some money for it from someone in search of an upscale almond toilet. You’d be amazed what people buy on Craigslist by the way. And a few days later… we sold it! For $80! The nicest family (a man with two young boys and a baby girl) came over to grab it after work one night last week. I know it’s nerdy, but it felt so good to know that our old john was going to a loving home. Haha. The funniest part was that when they all left with the toilet and we were waving at the window with Clara (she requires that we wave at everyone walking away from our house) she said “I go in car too!” Yup, the girl apparently liked the toilet and the new family so much that she wanted to leave with them.

Although we were initially looking at the $80 that we made on the sale of the old “fancy toilet” as a nice little credit towards our new one (which was $88), a few days later we heard about a sweet local family (a single mother named Chevelle with six children) that Habitat For Humanity is helping out. And we learned that for an $100 donation we could buy them a toilet for their new soon-to-be-built house.

Toilet Habitat

So we happily put our $80 Craigslist profit plus twenty bucks of our own into an $100 toilet donation for Chevelle’s family. If anyone else feels like helping them out – here’s the link. Habitat is such a great organization. We’re fans. But anyway, now that we’ve covered the subject of used (and new) toilets, let’s get on to the whole door trimming thing.

Door Before0

You probably remember us mentioning that the bottom of our bathroom door needed to be trimmed so it would open all the way instead of getting caught on an air vent in the floor.

Door Hits Grate

Not only was it annoying that the door wouldn’t fully open due to grinding up against the vent, but we also couldn’t have a bath mat because the bottom of the door would just wad it up and push into it since it couldn’t just pass over even the thinnest options. Which meant wet puddles on the floor outside the tub every day. Which just happens to be right in front of the toilet. Do you know how gross it is to go to the bathroom with your feet in puddles? Granted they’re clean bathwater puddles, but still – your brain can go to a dark place. And if you have socks on and you walk into the bathroom: wet socks. The worst.

So this week’s bathroom door-trimming update is also this week’s Dude Get On That Already challenge, because… dude…. how have we not gotten on this sooner?

  Door Before1

To remedy this situation, we cut down the door. It really wasn’t bad at all. First we removed the door by removing the hinge screws to slowly release it (two people = the best way to do something like this to avoid the door slamming down to the ground and scaring the bejeesus out of you).

  Removing Door

Then John and I carried the door out to the patio where we had set up the table saw. John pushed the door against the guide next to the blade as I pushed the door slowly into the blade to get a nice clean cut off the bottom. Update: Matt very kindly taught us a safer way to cut down a door, so read about that here. Safety first!

  Cutting Door

We probably took between half an inch and a third of an inch off since it was such a tight fit before and we wanted to make sure it would clear the vent on the floor and the future bath mat that we’d be adding to solve the whole puddle problem.

  Cutting Door Close

Then I sanded the bottom of the door to clean up any roughness before we rehung it (since once we rehung it we’d have a hard a$$ time getting sandpaper under it to smooth that area out).

  Sanding Bottom Of Door

Then we rehung the door about a half-hour later by using the same screws that we removed from the hinges.

  Hanging Door

Oh happy day! We cleared the vent! Still have to do some quick paint touch ups along the bottom lip, but it’s looking pretty good.

Door Cut After

Then I took a minute to add a doorstop on the bottom right edge of the door so the towel hooks on the back of the door wouldn’t slam open into the art that’s hanging on that side wall.

  Door Stop

So now our bathroom to-do list looks like this:

  • paint the walls so they have some contrast
  • replace the boob light
  • paint the cream trim white
  • hang some bathroom-friendly art
  • craigslist the toilet and replace it with a classic white one
  • do something to add privacy to the window
  • nix the ugly and cluttered showerhead caddy
  • remove the door so we can shave the bottom (and add a door stopper so it doesn’t squash the art)
  • finally get a bath mat
  • replace the border tile around the room (maybe in phase 2?)
  • move the blue pendant light to hang centered in front of the window (phase 2?)
  • replace the floor tile down, just to break things up since there’s so much of it (definitely phase 2)

John and I are still discussing when we’ll tackle things like cutting out that border tile and replacing it (along with rehanging the light to be centered on the window) so we’ll keep you posted if it’s right around the corner, and will be back with a full budget breakdown for all of Phase One if we decide to hold off on that other stuff for a little while. But enough about us. What about you guys? Have you sold any secondhand toilets? Bought any new ones? Cut down any doors?

Psst- To follow this bathroom sprucing project from the start, check out this planning post, this painting post, this light-swapping post, this art and trim-painting post, this toilet-updating post, and this window frosting and shampoo wrangling post.

Comments

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, at our first house we had a pea green toilet in our backyard for a while! We have a great picture of our nephew sitting on it pretending to read a magazine!

      xo,
      s

  5. LauraC says

    “your brain can go to a dark place” – lol! Thanks for the laugh and smiles this morning. And wet socks, double, triple yuck!

    Reply

  6. Tracey says

    Isn’t Habitat great? My dream was always to volunteer. By the time we got to a church with a Habitat leader I was preggo. My hubby got to help out on a house though. Then later he ended up being an unofficial project manager on a house for one of our congregants. The woman who lived there was getting really, really sick and couldn’t stay in her own house anymore. Turned out, the people who lived there prior were heavy smokers and the nicotine and chemicals were leaching through the paint on the walls. UGH. They had to Kilz the entire place and repaint. Happy to say, she’s a-okay now!

    Reply

  7. Meg says

    Any hints on how to keep doors from swinging open/shut? Every internal door in my house wants to do that. Drives me crazy. I think it’s because they’re uneven?

    Reply

    • KarenH says

      It does have to do with the door not being properly leveled when installed (or the home settling afterwards) and now the doors (and jamb) aren’t plumb. for a quick solution, you might consider installing kick-down doorstops (I use one in my spare room to keep the door open when the windows are open because a good draft through the house on a warm breezy day can end up with a slamming door (annoying) and a trapped kitty (even more annoying), that may be trapped while I’m gone and have to pee while in there (really really REALLY annoying :)

    • Suzanne says

      Pop out one of your hinge pins, take it outside to a hard surface and bang it with a hammer– its ok to bang it hard as it is really hard to change the shape. The idea is to rough it up enough so it creates some resistance. After you put the hinge pin back in, if it still closes do it to another one of the pins.
      I used to live in an old house and all of my doors needed this– we had lots of doorstops. I was so tired of doorstops. The day I read that tip on an hgtv message board forum, I jumped up from the computer, and got to work. It didn’t take too long before I fixed all of the doors myself. My hubby came home from work and was so happy that we could get rid of those doorstops. I hopes this helps you- I know the frustration you have with your closing doors.

    • Meg says

      You could try the rubber triangle-shaped door stoppers to keep them open. Put one behind the door and when opened and given a slight push the door moves up the tiny ramp creating a tight fit and stays open. I had never seen it done from the back until recently. It’s not a permanent fix, but it will keep the door open for you. Nice name, btw!! ;)

  8. Claire says

    What kind of tablesaw do you guys have? I’ve tried to find it on here (because I feel confident you guys have mentioned it in a post) but I’m coming up empty. We’re looking to invest in one because right now all we have is a circular saw that isn’t quite cutting it. (Haha- get it?)

    Thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      It’s a Skill Saw from Home Depot. Just pretty basic. We’ll have to blog about the name/make and take a clearer photo the next time we use it!

      xo,
      s

  9. Lena says

    Have you considered painting the tiles? You can paint both the wall tiles and the floor tiles. My sister recently painted her kitchen tiles & I haven’t seen them yet but she’s happy & friends of hers have done it a few years ago & are still happy.
    Here is an example of floor tiles which have been painted black (in the bathroom): http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/sweethome/index.php/22214/sweet-home-bei-der-familie-reichelt-die-eine-normale-40er-jahre-wohnung-in-ein-modernes-zuhause-mit-viel-glamour-umbaute/

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks for the link Lena! Everything we read says tile painting wont work if the tiles regularly get wet, and since our border tiles run through the shower (where water literally washes over them everyday) we worry it’ll crack and peel after even one or two steamy showers.

      xo,
      s

  10. GreenInOC says

    I had a YHL DIY inspired project that lasted a couple of days just recently! My bathtub drain keeps getting clogged and calling a plumber every time is seriously pissing me off!

    I have a pop up drain stopper that I “thought” required a professional. After gathering my YHL inspired backbone and giving myself a pep talk, I looked around online and figured out how to do it.

    It totally FAILED! The knob on the stopper was stuck like cement and would not budge. I tried WD40, no luck. I followed it by soaking it in vinegar, nada.

    Went to the hardware store and ended up buying something super toxic I’m sure (fail) but it loosened it enough and viola – it came off!!

    Cleaning out the drain was OMG disgusting wrapped in fascinating topped off with satisfying! I’m choosing to be stopper free at this point and just use the rubber drain covers (one with holes for showering and a flat one for bubble baths!).

    The plumber would have cost at least $120 and instead I spent $17 – I like it!!

    I would have never tackled it without DIY inspiration from YHL so thank you!

    Reply

  11. kristen says

    Haha, definitely not nerdy that you wanted to see your toilet go to a good home. When we recently renovated our kitchen, we ended up getting a new microwave, so we put our old (but less than a year old) microwave up on Craigslist. After the microwave was gone, my boyfriend and I had a conversation that went something like this:

    Matt: “I kind of miss the old microwave. I know it’s silly but I give things human emotions. I miss it.”
    Me: ” …. He (guy who bought the microwave) seemed like a nice guy.”
    Matt: “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sure Mikey is in a happy home now.”
    Me: “You named the microwave Mikey?!”
    Matt: ” …. yes.”

    Reply

  12. Marie says

    Funny story…after the new tile went into my house the door wasn’t cut even at the bottom. It rubbed ever so slightly on the outside edge. Without my husband home I needed a solution that would temporarily solve my problem and be quiet so as not to wake my sleeping son. I ran to the shed and got a large piece of sand paper then laid it on the floor under the door where it rubbed and stepping on both sides of the paper I swung the door several times back and forth between where my feet were. Not professional I know, but it solved my problem for the night :):):)

    Reply

  13. Lisa in IL says

    All our interior doors a cheap hollow core doors so we a kind of stuck. Our front door is a composite steel & is so out of wonk it freaks me out. If we ever had to get out in a hurry it would be dangerous so we mostly leave it open & lock the glass door at night.

    Reply

    • Aimee says

      I have all hollow-core doors too but it turns out they have a filler block at the bottom– I think 6″ or so. So they’re fine to cut. I scored mine with a utility knife (I was afraid the veneer would splinter) and used a circular saw. They turned out great! I had to cut 3 doors upstairs when I got new carpet in the hallway! Next step is painting them when it’s warm enough to paint outside!

  14. Carol Farrish says

    Congratulations on your future new bathmat. Will you have a ceremony for laying it?

    I though that part of the story might be that Clara used the toilet in the hall before it went to its new home.

    Good luck on the next phases of your remodeling.

    Reply

  16. Lindsey says

    My favorite part is adding the doorstops at the end. About half of the doors in my house don’t have doorstops (you never know how much you miss them until they’re gone), so I bought a huge stack…six months ago. That should be my Dude, Get On That Already project!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh man it’s satisfying! Probably took me five minutes total, but I felt great, like it was something I could check off! I highly recommend getting on that. Haha.

      xo,
      s

  17. Katie says

    You guys are such good people!!! I love your blog.

    I have lived in my house for 5 years and about 8 months ago we finally tackled trimming our door. My hubby and I are not super handy like you and John, so I called around to hardware stores to see if they could trim it and they all said no because of the door being hollow and it possibly splitting. My husband with the help of his godparents trimmed it just a smidge and now my bathmat fits perfectly! Anytime I washed the bathmat it wouldn’t fit under the door for about 4 weeks and then it was time to wash the bathmat again, this process drove me nuts. Needless to say I can appreciate your door trimming post.

    Reply

  18. Erin says

    Sorry, I have to ask, am curious . To remove the door, why didn’t John just pop the 3 pins (flathead screwdriver and hammer) from the hinges rather than unscrew all the hinges?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We didn’t want the hinges on the door while sliding it through the saw to cut it because we thought they might get jammed or caught (and mess up our perfectly straight line).

      xo,
      s

  19. Ginny @ Goofy Monkeys says

    Glad you finally got to that door! My husband usually just pops the pins out of the hinge when pulling doors off (which we seem to do with alarming frequency).

    And I am so glad that you found a new home for the old fancy toilet!

    Reply

  20. Na says

    Hello Sherry and John.
    I am one of your fan.. :)

    FYI..
    When you want to remove the door it is better to lift the door (you see middle part of the hinge, it can be moverble). Unscrewing hinge screws may cause the door sagging(as you know a door is pretty heavy) in the future.
    I heard from this a capenter.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks for the tip! We worried the hinge would get in the way of cutting it straight (ex: hinges getting caught when we were trying to slide it through the saw smoothly) so that’s why we took them off. Totally makes sense that not getting the screws back in there tightly or doing this too much would make for a saggy door though!

      xo,
      s

  21. Debbie says

    The employee bathrooms at my job (and public library, ha!) has similar colored square tiles on the wall (although a lot smaller than yours) and they have white hex tile on the floor. It makes me think of your bathroom plans every time I see the tile in there! The combination looks really good!

    Reply

  22. Nevin says

    What a great feeling that must have been to help out the family! My son volunteered at Habitat for Humanity last summer and loved. So when our bathroom was totally demolished – down to studs in most places, all of the cabinets and bath fixtures went to them. As the summer progressed, our items were bought at the store! It was great feeling knowing that someone purchased them and that the money went to help fund a new house.

    As always, love your stories and wit!

    Reply

  25. jeannette says

    thank you for the reminder that other people need housing too. it was on my to-do list to find an org here in the desert which does what my beloved manna back in d.c. does — get the working poor into homes of their own. they’re usually women.
    the other thing is, in hard times, giving money away is my tried and true trick for not feeling so strapped.

    so here’s the place i found here in albuquerque, thanks to your inspo:
    http://www.womenshousingcoalition.org/

    and here’s my beloved manna:
    http://www.mannadc.org/template/page.cfm?id=111

    what goes around comes around.
    xxx

    Reply

  28. Ammie says

    Oh…the laughs I got from John’s shirt. Of course we can’t see the whole thing, but I think it says “Talk Nerdy to Me” right? Haha – made my morning!

    Reply

  29. KarenH says

    Yay! Now you can have dry feet! :) Also warm feet in the winter. Bath mats are essential equipment!

    One question: Why remove the actual hinges from the wall, rather than pull the hinge pin?

    Reply

  30. Penny Smith says

    OK, I am guilty of not reading all 100+ comments, but that picture “after” makes it look like it is a hella high over the vent now! Like if you have a boy later, he can send hot wheels under. Hee! Is it an illusion, or is it higher than you needed?

    Reply

  31. Kelly says

    Okay, what is with the potty mouth? lol. You guys are so straight laced, which I love. And then THIS is the post where the A-word comes out? And if you were to swear, I would think you would curse that you took HOW LONG to shave this door? That is ridiculous. I would have driven to your house and shaved this door myself, while not swearing, of course. :)

    Reply

    • Kelly says

      Lol. Dollar signs don’t count? Well then how can I speak those out loud? Do share! And don’t let Clara figure out how to read $ @ ! *! Cover her ears/eyes!

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, you say them out loud. Ex: “A – dollar sign, dollar sign.” It’s like H-E-double-hockey-sticks. To us it’s the prude version. Haha.

      xo,
      s

    • Britiney says

      So funny. Last week I told my husband I thought someone was a bad A-dollar sign-dollar sign and my 12 year old son called me on it. *giggle* We don’t use that language around our kids, but he was in the other room and I didn’t think he could hear me and I still used the prude version. hehehehe

  32. Matt says

    First, I wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoy your blog. As a school-trained woodworker/cabinetmaker with ten years of experience, I wanted to make you aware of a safety issue regarding how you trimmed your door on the tablesaw. The off-cut (in this case the sliver of door being removed) should never lie between the blade and fence. If this sliver of wood shifts slightly as you complete the cut and gets pinched between the blade and the fence, the blade turns the wood into a projectile and sends it at you with significant force. A better way to trim a door would be to use a circular saw and a long straight edge clamped to the door as a saw guide. The saw would ride along the door following the straight edge and let the waste piece fall away safely. To prevent tear-out along the bottom edge of the door you could apply masking tape along the cut-line prior to making your cut.

    Again, I don’t want to be critical, but I also would not want one of your readers trimming a door using your technique and possibly getting seriously injured.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks so much for the warning Matt! We’re definitely not experts and always welcome the advice! I’ll link to your comment so folks can learn along the way with us!

      xo,
      s

    • Bob says

      I’ve witnessed what Matt’s talking about, way back in junior high woodshop. The teacher was trimming something before class started and the scrap (aka “missle”) shot a good 30 feet across the room and blew a hole through the plywood wall…right in front of some students who were walking in for class!

      If I remember right he wasn’t missing any fingers like some shop teachers, so I guess he found another way to “teach by example”. I’m still overly cautious around table saws because of it. :)

  33. Ashley says

    I’m looking forward to your post about replacing the border tile. My hubby and I are in the process of buying a house (short sales – blech!), and I’m not a fan of the border in the master bath. If it’s phase two for you guys, then maybe I’ll have my own crummy border tile to deal with at the same time! lol

    Reply

  34. Julianne says

    Love that blue light in the bathroom and how simple it was for you to fix that door. Brushing against the floor is so annoying.

    My finace and I were inspired by your simple paint-job of your bathroom and decided to tackle ours.
    Though it ended up being a bit more time consuming than we original planned for, I’m happy with the way it came out.
    All we need now are some new things for the wall and we’ll be all set.

    http://www.julieslifeinablogshell.blogspot.com/2012/04/facelift.html

    Reply

  35. Blythe says

    Just a tip when you don’t want chips on your paint job. Use painter’s tape around the outside of the door and then cut right through it with the table saw. It works perfectly and avoids having to do any touch ups :)

    Reply

  36. Chris B. says

    When I first moved into my crazy short sale house, I replaced the old standard toilets w/ones that have a little more umph to them. I put the old toilets on Craigslist for free (perfectly fine) and the guy who picked them up turned out to be a contractor getting them for his shop. That was nearly two years ago and since then he’s transformed my home – built my garage, redone my house, yard, etc. For the price of two free toilets, I found my go to guy!

    Reply

  37. Roxy says

    Your scrunched up bath mat problem reminds me that I pretty much “locked” myself in a huge glass shower in the Wynn hotel in Vegas. I jumped in the shower, but noted that the shower door dragged across the cute circle bath mat. Thought to myself, what if it does that on the way out? Tried pushing the door open only to have it get caught on the bath mat. The door would only open about 3 inches. Yikes–was I stuck for hours until the hubs got back from his meeting? Would housekeeping come in and find me? Shudder. Luckily, I was finally able to wedge my hand out the door and get the mat removed enough to get the door open. Hahahaha, could have been veeerrryy embarrassing.

    Reply

  38. Alyssa says

    I haven’t sold any toilets but since posting a weird mess of things on Craigslist this last Sunday night, as of today I have sold: a crib, changing table, couch, children’s workbench and a kids big play kitchen! I’m pretty dang proud of myself for selling the stuff that’s been sitting around and have two more things to get off our hands. Here’s to hoping they sell soon! Nothing like clearing out clutter, making money, and have someone else haul off your unwanted items:)

    Oh and PS: I still have a little one and your play kitchen inspired me so much, that’s why I sold ours and plan to put the money towards a new DIY’d version like Clara’s.

    Congrats on the toilet sale and how sweet of you to help out a family in need.

    Reply

  42. Amy Knisely says

    Our soap holder just fell off our shower (again) today… looks like we’re in for a bathroom renovation sooner than we thought. We’re planning on using clear, opal and white glass pebble shaped vase filler for the surround and create an ombre-like effect (or something like that) with it. On paper it sounds gorgeous… in practice I’m not so sure how it’s going to work.

    Reply

  44. Alyson says

    Delightful!! I’m loving the help you gave a sista, and well I know what a boon it is for the door to be able to go over a bathmat since I don’t have that in my own master bathroom at present. But out of curiosity, why didn’t you just take out the hinge pins? Just slip those suckers out (or, at our house we often have to get a big long nail and pound them out from the bottom) and the separate hinge pieces are, ta-daaaa, separate. No screw removal necessary. Is there a reason that taking the screws out was preferable in this case?

    Reply

  45. Jeremy says

    I would agree with you that wet socks might be the most unpleasant thing in the whole world. It’s even worse when it takes you by suprise!

    Reply

  46. Johanna says

    I was reading the posts on the sand box, SO COOL! I had a very similar one growing up that my grandpa made for us grandkids, although it didn’t have the cool lid that Clara’s does and so we’d often find the neighbors cat poop in there! So gross to even think about now LOL anyways, thought I’d share a cool little fact…. I’m sure you have seen the classic sandbox that is a green turtle, that comes with a matching lid? My great uncle invented that, and then sold the patent to little tike! Who knew I had such a cool family?? Lol

    Reply

  47. Shana says

    I know you plan on moving the light fixture eventually, but is it possible to swag it to the center of the room in the mean time? Or would that just look stupid? My husband and I had a house built this summer and we didn’t pay much attention to where the light fixture was going in the dining room. Once the house was all set and fixtures in we tried centering our dining table under it, but oops, we forgot about the hutch that we wanted to put in the room too. We ended up having to swag the light and it looks pretty good, not amazing, but good.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Yeah, we thought about swagging it but thought it might look kind of busy in such a small room so we hope to tackle the moving project soon and just get it over with! Haha.

      xo,
      s

  48. KellyA says

    I’ve definitely done my share of door removal and trust me, with one person it is not easy! I now have just one door left to paint and rehang but it’ll be awhile since I’m using ORB for the hinges and hardware and kinda like having the open office door.

    Reply

  50. Carolyn H. says

    You guys are lucky: We had to take a few inches off a door in order to mount it in our basement. (We were replacing a weird folding door. Turns out that the opening wasn’t standard door height. Apparently, that’s why the weird folding door. Anyway…) We bought a discount hollow core door, drilled three holes in the very bottom of it, and filled the holes with special spray foam. When the foam had solidified, we sawed off the bottom of the door. Quite a project. But, it saved us a lot of money and looks really nice now.

    Reply

Stuff We Love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *