Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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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

  2. Kim W Rily says

    We are sadly old pros at trading out toilets after doing an exchange of our old 1950 toilet for water saving dual flush ones through a community program as well as buying one on Craigslist when the dual flush one BROKE when I dropped a can of air freshener on it. Seriously, the can broke a hole into the bowl of the toilet. I don’t know how it happened. $20 on Craigslist later and we now have a short squat toilet, not too unlike the one you just got rid of. But it doesn’t have the rounded back, so no $1300 steal for us. :)

    Reply

  3. lara says

    you guys don’t have any doors that stick do you? i’ve got a few and was hoping for a future YHL tutorial!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We had one in our first house and we sanded the heck out of it. It worked for a while and then when it got to be summer it must have swelled again. So frustrating! So we sanded it a bunch more and it finally worked. We sanded it right in place on the hinges with a mouse sander just to do it faster than by hand. I would recommend painting it after you sand since a few folks have said that if you paint the unpainted top or bottom it can cut down on expansion. Good luck!

      xo
      s

  4. David says

    Just a suggestion, but rather than using a small table saw like you did, if you clamp a straight board across the bottom of the door, you can make a guide to cut that dooe with a circular saw. It would be way easier to move the saw straight than the door. Just measure the correct distance from the guide on the saw to the blade, and make the guide you clamped to the door the apporopriate distance from the desired cut. The tape suggestion also works great. I would however make sure your blade is sharp enough, and that you are going to cut off more than a quarter inch.

    We bought 18 doors a few years ago to replace all of the old doors in our house, and I had to cut every one of them down. After two on my table saw, I went this way and never looked back.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks so much for the recommendation David! That’s exactly what another guy named Matt recommended. We’ll have to try that next time! It’s amazing that you did so many doors that way!

      xo,
      s

  5. Carol says

    Love your bathroom!

    You know that little rubber thingy on the end of the doorstop…we started missing them.
    Found out our cat was the culprit…she would pull them off and batt them around the house!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, that’s so funny! John just randomly kicked one of them off at someone else’s house yesterday. We were so embarrassed. Sorry we accidentally broke your house.

      xo,
      s

  6. Meg says

    I, like a couple other readers, wondered why y’all didn’t just remove the hinge pins from the door, but I see it was because of catching issues with the saw. We have a door swing issue as well, but are waiting to fix it until we redo the bathroom this summer. Our door swings into our bathroom, which is fine, but it opens into the middle of the room rather than against the wall. It is a fairly small bathroom (but our only one) and it just annoys me to no end. It makes the bathroom difficult to maneuver.

    I was also going to ask about your clear TP tube, but while typing I thought to check your room-by-room source list and found it in the guest bathroom of your first house! Just to be clear, it is a vase, right? (I feel like there is a weak pun lurking somewhere in that sentence, ha!) Great idea! I may have a trip to Target in my near future! Your source list is a great resource! Thanks for providing it!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, yes! It’s a vase from Target and I just walked into Target with t.p. in my purse and slipped it into the vase I wanted (to be sure it would fit! haha). I’m that person who brings t.p. to Target in my purse.

      xo,
      s

  7. Suzanne says

    Glad you got it done, sorry you didn’t switch side and swing while at it. ;) Phase II.

    AND glad you added that safety note – yeah, prob. not the best tool for this project. Do you have a regular skil saw? But goterdone with no incidents, thankfully. Saws can be dangerous.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We share one with John’s dad, but he currently has it. Better get it back! Haha. As for the door swing, we decided since we leave the door open when the bathroom’s not in use that we don’t want the door opening in front of half of our mirror in the sink nook. That nook is so pretty and balanced, we’d rather a door clutter up the bathroom than the pretty window/mirror/sink you can see from the door of the bedroom.

      xo,
      s

  8. Brynn says

    Okay, dont get me wrong, I love that you donated to Habitat, love the organization,I even got to build with them once! But, isn’t odd that they need $100 for a toilet when you guys only spent $88? Or maybe I am the only one who notices these random things.

    Anyway keep up the good work, you guys are so inspiring in so many ways!

    Reply

  9. Liska says

    I agree with the poster who said you should paint the tops and bottoms of your doors to prevent swelling from humidity. We have several doors in our house that would swell and stick every summer. We’d sand them down, rehang, they’d be fine, and then next year, boom, swollen shut again. Lather rinse repeat.

    Once we started painting the areas we cut down and sand, the swelling lessened considerably. While you can tell doors still swell a bit, they don’t stick enough to require sanding and we haven’t had to resand/cut any of the ones we painted. And really, we only use primer, not even real paint, but we give it a pretty thick coat to really soak into the newly exposed wood. It only takes a minute or two (maybe 5 if you count the time spent washing the paintbrush) and it has saved us several summers of re-sanding!

    So if I were you, I’d pop that door back down and paint the bottom — especially since a bathroom will have tons of humidity. Not that you needed another project on your list or anything…..

    Reply

  10. Dani says

    Yes, projectiles from table saws are bad. I heard a crash from the garage/woodshop one night and ran out to find that a piece had flown back from hubby’s table saw and gone straight through the garage window and blown glass EVERYWHERE. I am so glad hubby had the sense to stand to the side, knowing it was a possibility with the kind of cut he was making. Scared the bejezus out of me!

    The bathroom is looking great!

    Reply

  11. Meg W says

    Our toilet is coming out momentarily! Last weekend we turned the upstairs tub into a shower! Painted the walls, installed new plumbing to the tub and up to the shower and installed a new surround. Tonight we’re pulling up carpet, (really… Who puts carpet in a bathroom!?!?) and prepping the floor for tile, (which will require us to get the toilet out of the road for a few days)

    Reply

  12. Ann says

    You’re totally right – wet socks ARE the worst! Some people don’t seem bothered by that but it’s a total pet peeve of mine. :-) Bathroom’s looking great!

    Reply

  13. Leah Concepcion says

    I love how the mirror on the door captured the flowering trees you have in your backyard. So pretty!

    Reply

  14. Annie says

    Do you never have trash in your trash can? Or are you sneaky and dump it out before you take pictures? Beautiful loo!

    Reply

  16. Kristen says

    I didn’t sell a toilet but did a toilet-related “get on that already”… I bought a dual flush converter for the toilet eons ago, after being inspired by your toilet upgrade when you originally posted it (I had also installed a diaper sprayer about 2 weeks prior to that post!) Anyhoo, with all the bathroom upgrades on your blog, I decided to do one myself. I replaced the wooden toilet seat with a crisp clean white one and installed a dual flusher! I also found that I needed a new fill valve, so made another trip back to the store. Now my toiled is all suped up and looks so much better!!! My son loves the dual flush button lol It’s the little things ;)

    Reply

  17. Chesley says

    Seeing the pollen on your patio table makes my nose itch! Ah, spring. Love the Habitat donation story. You guys are great.

    Reply

  19. Katherine says

    The best part about your toilet recycle story is the information regarding Habitat For Humanity. Since we all get ‘free’ advise from your blog, I think it is worth giving back with a donation to my local chapter of Habitat.
    Thanks for the reminder to give.

    Reply

  20. Shel says

    You guys really didn’t use a bath mat because of the door, haha?

    Why didn’t you just put the bath mat on the floor when taking a shower, then pick it up and put it on the side of the tub when you’re done?

    Or did you do this and just not like it?

    I’ve never really had bath mat-door problems, but I have almost always picked up my bath mat after showering in almost every bathroom I’ve had (regardless of space). I just hate leaving a wet mat out on the floor – not only does it look messy after getting wet and being used, but I don’t want to accidentally step on it and get my feet wet! And I don’t like leaving it out on the floor at other times for dust or stuff to get on it and then it not be perfectly clean for my clean feet out of the shower. :-)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      It’s such a small room we don’t have a hook to hang the mat over, just two hooks for our towels (even the sink is the in hall since it’s such a cramped space). Honestly never thought about hanging it over the tub, though! Haha.

      xo,
      s

  21. Heidi P. says

    Lovely unintentional picture in the door mirror! I haven’t sold any toilets lately, but I did dye my bath towels charcoal grey! They were once upon a time white. I love them now!

    Reply

  22. Taylor says

    So funny you mentioned your expensive toilet because one night I was reading my blogs in bed and my husband kept glancing over and I got to one of your bathroom posts and he’s like “oh my god that’s an expensive toilet” haha I was like how do u know the prices of toilets haha!!

    Reply

  23. Ruth H. says

    Oh, the toilet in the front room brings back such fond memories….how crazy is that? My husband and I were both in college when we met. The first time he brought me over to his apartment, I was greeted by his roommates AND a toilet in the corner of their living room. He and his roommates had found the toilet at the local thrift store, and brought it home. My husband-to-be had retrofitted it with an elaborate pump system so that a lovely fountain of water would shoot from the tank into the bowl, which housed the apartment goldfish. They had even arranged houseplants on top of the tank, to make it look extra nice. It was awesome–Napoleon-freakin’-Dynamite awesome. I’ve never doubted his DIY abilities.

    Reply

  24. kat says

    That gap under the door looks REALLY big now. I’m guessing it’s the angle? Can you maybe put up a pic from farther back so we can see how short it really is?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, oh yes it’s just the angle. Once we toss down a mat and take pics we’ll share them so you can see how it just clears something that thick!

      xo,
      s

  25. Patti says

    Argh, I really need to do this to my bathroom door too. Although I don’t have a table or circular saw at home – any advice on this? Should I rent one? Take an electric sander to it? Haul it in to Home DEpot and have someone else cut it? I’m sort of stumped.

    Also – how can I tell if the door is solid? I’d hate to make a cut only to find out the door is hollow and now all exposed…

    Ha, not sure why but this simple thing has me really nervous…

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think you can rent tools at places like Home Depot, so maybe seeing how much it would be to rent one (and checking if they’d cut it if you bring it in) will help? As for knowing if it’s solid, knocking usually makes it clear (does it sound loud and solid or sort of thinner and hollow?). We have heard that hollow core doors still have a few inches of reinforced solid wood on the bottom so they can be cut down (ours was a hollow core door and we had no issues cutting it down). Good luck!

      xo,
      s

  26. Holly says

    Hi guys!

    “Then John and I carried the door out to the patio where we had set up the table saw. John pushed the door MIGHT (?) 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”

    Should might be right? :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, nice catch! That was just an old pic (taken before we frosted the window and put that stuff up there). It’s still there! And my little succulent seems to be loving it!

      xo,
      s

  29. julianna says

    Do you have any penny tile left over from the kitchen? It seems like the color and style would go well with your bathroom, and it would be easy to trim to get it to fit perfectly in the accent tile space. (Plus, if you already own it, then it would be free!)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We have thought about that but don’t think we have enough to do it (it’s on backorder now, haha). Might see when it’ll be back if we hold it up and it’s perfect though!

      xo,
      s

  30. Connie says

    I replaced a toilet last summer with an inexpensive, white Kohler from my local Home Depot, and kept the old one on my patio for a few weeks till a neighbor was ready for it. It was kind of amusing to see it out there with all the “normal” patio stuff. A few nutty friends thought it made for a great photo op, too!

    Reply

  31. Stahli says

    I think the toilet thing would have looked better if you had coordinated the towel with the curtains! (JK) I would love to get a new toilet (or even a new to us toilet) but that will have to wait. The next thing on our “Dude Get On That Already” list is to cut down the door to the playhouse. I am hoping to even get the playhouse done! It was supposed to be a small week-end project…….last year!!

    I have to say that your door really confused me for awhile. For the longest time I thought you had a glass window door to try and make the LITTLE room a little less little!?!? It took until the last post before I realized that it was just a mirror.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, we thought we’d spray him when we bought him but have since decided we like him au naturale! Haha. He ties into our wood dining table!

      xo,
      s

  33. Danielle says

    Wow…I JUST sold a toilet on craigslist after my husband replaced it with some fancy-flush one. He didn’t believe me that anyone would buy a toilet….behold the powers of craigslist!!! The second toilet we replaced might get picked up by a friend for a gardening project….think it would make an interesting planter.

    Reply

  34. Marsha says

    Hi, I love your site. I have been following for about 14 months but have never commented. I agree that you need to paint the bottom of your door. Especially in the bathroom because of the humidity. My husband trimmed our door and i negelected to paint it for several weeks/months. It is now hopelessly warped. Keep up the good work and enjoy your Bean. I have one of my own, Jilly Bean.

    Reply

  35. Erin says

    Really random question: do you think the seat that came with your new toilet just doesn’t fit properly? My husband and I recently installed the same one in our main bathroom and we think the seat seems too small for the toilet. Not sure if ours got packaged with the wrong lid or if all the bathroom remodeling has made us loco! :-)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Funny you say that – I thought the same thing. It seems a bit smaller / flimsier than the rest of the toilet. I originally was determined to get a new one, but now I’ve kinda gotten used to it.

      -John

  38. mp says

    My husband was a cheap, cheap man (in the worst sense of the world) and insisted on buying a cut-rate toilet even though he was in a wheelchair and needed one that he could slide onto easily. After he pulled the toilet out of the floor for the fifth or sixth time (and handed his debit card to the plumber), I dragged him to Home Depot and we bought an ADA-approved toilet along with several sheets of beadboard so we could cover up the skid marks from his wheelchair tires hitting the wall. Paid around $300 for the toilet, but it works great and sits nice and high for anyone needing an extra couple of inches. I Freecycled the old one.

    Reply

  39. Kevin says

    Nice job. I always love when bathroom or closet doors have mirrors paneled in like this. In addition to acting like a nice vanity check, they also add a lot of light to a room. houseofthebonestorm.blogspot.com

    Reply

  41. Meghan says

    So I’m visiting Hilton Head and we just finished dinner. In the bathroom, there was the exact same toilet you sold! I felt so fancy knowing it was a $1300 toilet!! (and it wasn’t a particularly fancy restaurant)

    Reply

  42. Kim says

    Thank you for this post! I was thrilled when I saw this item on your bathroom to-do list. We need to do exactly same thing in our bathroom for exactly same reason. Plus, Matt’s advice will really help us since we don’t have a table saw, but do have a new circular saw. Yay! :)

    Reply

  43. Connie says

    Speaking of “toilet planter”, I once saw a yard with a toilet full of flowers and an old iron bed-frame nearby. The owner had placed signage that identified these items as a “flower pot” and a “flower bed”. Haha!

    Reply

  45. April Anderson says

    Is that a little yellow paint I see in the crack of your front door? I am wanting to repaint our front door also & was wondering what part to paint the outside colour. I want the inside to be white like yours…but maybe the sides of the door should be also be white??? Then again don’t want the white to show through to the front. Decisions. Decisions.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes the light from the door somehow reflects in the yellow tone on the side of the door a bit, so I would leave the sides white to probably cut down on that! Hope it helps! Although you’re right about not wanting white to show through on the front. Hmm, let us know if you do the sides white and it works- I bet it could if you’re careful about your lines since the sun shines into the house and less from out of it (so it might not “reflect” as much color out like it does in). Good luck!

      xo,
      s

  46. Kismet says

    Hi.
    I’d like to see what your cut looks like with the door closed. Is there a big gap under the door?

    ~K!

    Reply

  48. Annie Swift says

    It was actually me that raised the issue of it being a $1300 toilet, and almond in colour not cream….

    credit where credit is due, I would have been happier to see “after a reader discovered”

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      So sorry Annie, it’s not that John was trying to take toilet-pricing-glory-credit from you or anything! Haha. It’s just that John independently found the price on Kohler’s website a while ago (waaay back when he was looking for the rough-in measurement for the toilet at the start of this bathroom upgrading project – just to make sure we could even switch it out with a white one before mentioning it on the blog). So it’s definitely one of those things that we didn’t bring up on the blog yet (ex: talking about the toilet’s price didn’t make sense until the post about switching out the toilet) before your comment, but we already knew. In fact we responded to your comment about it with “isn’t that crazy?!” (not sure you saw that, here) which is also a clue that we were in on it (usually when we don’t know something we might say “Whaaaaat?! We had no idea! Thanks a million!”). As for calling it almond/beige/bisque, we just interchange those words (the only time we wanted to get it right was on the craigslist listing since John wanted to use Kohler’s language, but we’re more casual on our blog so those colors tend to be swapped in and out). Hope that makes sense!

      xo,
      Sherry

  49. Sheridan Simms says

    I’m so jealous of your non-painted hinges. :) I’m currently renovating my house and ALL of my hinges/screw heads have been painted over more than once, some so badly that I’m going to have to replace the hinge because it doesn’t open properly any more. I dread taking off doors!

    Reply

  50. Stahli says

    I read somewhere that if you soak the hinges and whatever is covered in paint in a crock-pot for a couple of hours that is makes it a lot easier to get the paint off. I haven’t tried this but it did look like it worked for whoever it was (I don’t remember what blog it was).

    Reply

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