Now isn't this a romantic post? Let's talk toilets!

In 2001, just before embarking on our first, full custom home, I was attending a party at a friends home. This wasn't just any friend. It was a friend who happened to live in a multi-million dollar home on the intracoastal in Boca Raton. In fact, it was a friend who — along with her husband, who happened to be the president of an enormous company — had purchased a mansion on the intracoastal, razed it, and built a new mansion to suit on the lot.

She had books and binders filled with product brochures and swatches and samples and pictures. She had everything organized down to the smallest detail. Let's just say that wasn't the first time she acted as designer and overseer to a custom home build.

Being utterly inexperienced, I picked her brain for advice. My first question was this:

“Portia, what is the very best, single piece of advice you can give me for building a custom home?”

Her answer?

“Toto toilets!”

Ha ha ha ha. OK. Good one. “No, really. Best advice?”

She looked me in the eye and said, “Alison, Toto toilets.” The look in her eye told me she was not one to be trifled with. And she was dead serious. Coming from the world of American Standard, I knew that researching Toto toilets was now to be high on my building to do list.

After my due diligence, our last home proudly featured five Toto toilets. She was right. Our new home will have seven of the exact, same model: The Toto Carlyle, model #MS874114SG-01.

What I Love About Toto Toilets

• Water Savings
  Toto set the standard for water savings, literally. As more and more states have passed legislation to regulate water use in plumbing, the EPA has integrated some of Toto's stringent methods into its testing protocols, since they'd been perfecting these green technologies for decades before anyone else cared. The Carlyle uses only 1.6 gallons per flush.
• Superior, One-Flush Performance
  It doesn't help if you use less water and then have to flush twice as a result. With Toto, you flush, and it goes down. All of it. I was amazed at the huge reduction in clogs we experienced.Toto uses the G-Max Flushing System on this model.
• Cleaner
  With the smooth Sanagloss finish on many models, the yuck has a really hard time sticking to the bowl. Flushing cleans it all away. Much more pleasant all around.
• Practically Maintenance Free
  Without getting too personal or disgusting, suffice it to say that I have four daughters. Five women in the house can wreak havoc on the plumbing. Having lived through “regular” toilets for years—and suffering through them again in our rental—I can tell you I never, ever want to go back. Without Toto toilets, we have become far too familiar with a toilet auger.
• One Year Limited Warranty
  Taking care of you.

What I Love About the Carlyle Toto Toilet

• One-Piece Design
  I'm a clean freak and anything that makes cleaning easier is a huge plus. Choosing a one-piece toilet means you don't have that tank/base separation that always fills with guck and filth. Instead, you have a smooth, integrated piece that is easy to clean.
• Skirted Base
  There is just about nothing grosser than toilet bases. Not only is gravity—and young boys—completely at odds with keeping that area clean, but most toilets are, too. This is not good on clean freaks.On most designs, the toilet base has bumpy trapway enclosure, and the horizontal base area (where you screw the toilet to the floor) with those icky, gooey screw cover thingees. Everything on the planet gravitates to that area and when you combine the dirt, hair, urine — just disgusting.To the rescue is the skirted base. One, straight, clean line to the floor. No cracks or crevices. Nothing to catch the ickiness. A breeze to spray down and wipe off.
• Soft-Close Seat and Lid
  If you've ever been startled awake by the crashing of a toilet seat in the middle of the night, I won't need to convince you. The soft-close toilet lid/seat is a simple, yet beautiful, thing. You pull the lid and/or the seat away from it's open position, and the seat slowly and silently lowers to the close position. No slamming, no banging.
• Elongated Front Bowl
  These just simply fit the adult backside better. If you have little potty-training kids, however, don't let them fall in. Buy a $10 potty seat to sit on top of the attached seat. Problem solved.

There is one other model that meets my toilet requirements. It's the Toto Guinevere, model #MS974224CEFG. It has a little fancier styling, but the extra ridges mean more cleaning issues.

From years of experience, we highly recommend only Toto toilets.