Restless Wilson's: Creature Comforts: A Tall Toilet and Water Heater Smackdown

A great cup of coffee, air conditioning, hot shower, clean toilet, and a comfortable bed....

These are a few of my favorite things. Let's get real, these are things I refuse to do without. We all have those deal breakers, the things we think we can not do without for very long. If I am going to live in a motorhome, it better be comfortable.

The original bathroom in the Big Lebowski was way too small. There was no way it would serve our needs. The bathtub/shower combo was, for the lack of a better word, micro. It was large enough to bathe a Yorkie, but since I don't own one and have no plans to acquire one, it needed to go.

The original toilet was plastic, set low to the ground, and well used. There is just something about using someone else's toilet that makes me uncomfortable. I also wanted one that was more like home. We opted to get a tall porcelain toilet.

Another item we wanted to include in the bathroom upgrade was an on demand water heater. The original water heater had a seven gallon tank and took an hour to heat. That adds up to a lot of propane when two people are trying to get a bath each day. Plus it meant having to take "Navy Showers". I am not in the Navy. When you have a head full of curly hair and girly parts to wash, that seven gallons of hot water does not go far. Even when taking a "Navy Shower".

Bathroom Before: Bathtub/Shower Combo

Bathroom Before: Lavatory and Vanity

Bathroom Before: Toilet (I like to think of it as a
potty training toilet for two year olds)

We stripped the bathroom down to nothing.

We took out the old plumbing and Tracy went to work making the bathroom as comfortable as possible. While installing the new plumbing lines Tracy took advantage of the opportunity to install plumbing for an RV washer and dryer. Eventually we will add one because frequent trips to a laundry mat are not my idea of fun, but for now we are just planning for the future.

During Bathroom: New plumbing, flooring

We ordered the new shower basin and walls from an online retailer. These cost us just over $600, and shipped out rather quickly. We had to get these installed before ordering the glass surround and door. So for a few days after moving in we had to use a shower curtain. We were able to custom order the glass surround and door from a local retailer, Waco Glass and Mirror, for far less than we could order them online. Plus Waco Glass and Mirror took the measurements for the glass and frame, so if the measurements were wrong we could easily return it. Tracy opted to do the installation himself so that we could save $100.

After: New shower basin and walls

After: New shower walls, marine vinyl covers
the gap between ceiling and shower wall

The glass door and frame took about a hundred swear words and an hour and a half to install.

The glass door and surround came in about 30 pieces. It was a lot like putting together a 3-D puzzle. The written instructions were not too helpful. If we had not had a little experience at this kind of stuff it might not have gotten put together so quickly. Everything we needed from screws to the rubber seals were included. We only needed to supply the clear silicone caulk, and hand tools for the installation.

During Bathroom Remodel: Installation of glass shower door and surround

After: New Shower

After: New Shower, future broom closet.

We decided to get a neo-classic corner shower. We knew that we would have to give up some square footage for a larger shower, but it would be worth it. While measuring and taping out our options on the floor we discovered that the corner shower gave us more bathing space while taking up less floor space. It is not exactly what we originally wanted but it is far better than with what we started. Shaving my legs is a little challenging, but I have been searching for a reason to stop.

During the construction of the glass shower surround and doors, Tracy installed some small colored LED lights around the top of the glass. They glow either green, blue, or red. The glow is just bright enough to serve as a night light without being so bright we can not sleep. I prefer the blue light, but the green is not so bad either. The red light just makes me feel like I am in a red light district.

The throne for giants.

If there is one thing I have learned, it's how and when to pick my battles. We purchased our toilet from a local RV shop. The original unit sat on a raised platform which was covered with the faded mauve carpet. Being the daughter of a plumber I understood the purpose of the platform, but having worked in a Microbiology Lab for 15 years my gag reflexes started working over time. When I caught site of that faded mauve poop trap I just knew thirty years of C. diff and E. coli were lurking like a creepy mouth breather, waiting to lash out and kill us.

Tracy removed the carpeting, recovered the platform with some of the left over flooring, and installed the toilet. Hmmm...with the added height of the platform the toilet was more than a little tall. We had gone from a toilet that could easily have doubled as a potty chair to a toilet that was made for professional basketball players.

Tracy is normally a perfectionist, so I was a little surprised when he did not go the extra mile and cut down the drain pipe to lower the platform. In his defense we were getting close to our deadline and moving day was just around the corner.

After: New Throne

I did not say a word. I kept my mouth shut and bought a step stool.

I don't know if it was because Tracy was tired of tripping over the step stool or if something else caused him to change his mind, but I won. I came home from work one evening and Tracy had lowered the toilet.

No more cold showers = No more body odor.

The new water heater came about two weeks after we moved into the Big Lebowski. We had started pricing the on demand water heaters shortly after we got the motorhome. When we first started looking the going retail price was around $1200. We got an Attwood 90205 On-Demand Hot Water Heater for just less than $600 at Amazon in early February.

This is the water heater we bought.

I am so thrilled with the new water heater. We have had a cold, wet winter here in Texas and taking “Navy Showers” was brutal. The old water heater was only seven gallons and we had to remember to turn it on an hour before showering. After that seven gallons was gone it was another hour before we had hot water again. It seems like that would be enough, but it’s not. So both of us taking a bath every day was a ballet requiring planning and coordination. I felt like I had to choose between washing my body and washing my hair. After the first week I cut my hair.

After watching our neighbor take two days to install his new water heater, I do not feel bad about it taking six hours for Tracy to get ours installed. The biggest problem was that the work space is small, and you can not always see what you are doing. The next problem was that we misunderstood what "exact fit" means. The specifications listed the new water heater as an exact fit for our old water heater. Not so fast, as it turns out exact fit means it has the same foot print. The connections were on the opposite side from our old unit.

Old water heater: The old water heater was original the
Big Lebowski and only heater 7 gallons an hour.
It was full of sediment. We joked that it was
really just a 3 gallon unit.

Our biggest mistake with the purchase of the water heater was to not spend the extra $30 to buy the new door. Again, "Exact Fit". The vent was on the opposite side as our current door. Tracy had to modify our old door until we could order a replacement.

The actual installation only took three hours. The remaining three hours were spent trying to track down the leak. Tracy made about 100 trips to the interior and back out to the exterior of the motorhome. Doug and I sat in a chair outside and watched. We learned a lot of dirty words that night.

New tankless / on-demand water heater.
I am spoiled for life.

A good nights sleep cures everything.

We eventually decided to just go to bed. I figured after a good nights sleep Tracy would feel better and get it figured out. Sure enough, he woke up early, and declared he knew where the leak was coming from.

I bit my tongue as I watched him pull up a piece of the new flooring and cut a hole in the floor of the Big Lebowski. He reached into the hole and held up a piece of piping with a factory screw stuck in the side. We guess with all the pulling on the piping during the installation of the new water heater the screw must have lost some of its grip on the pipe and sprung a leak.

Upgrades and little changes.

Tracy installed black out tint on the windows so you cannot see the interior from the outside. We had some left over from a job he did for a Dollar General store front a couple of years ago. I am so glad we hung onto it. I was a little apprehensive about tinting all the windows. I was worried the tint would make the interior too dark. It is darker, but not so dark that I feel like I live in a cave. The tint has made a huge difference on hot days.

We changed all the light bulbs to LED lights and have been slowly replacing the lighting fixtures as we go. The original lighting fixtures are dated and the covers block the light. We added a couple of extra fixtures while working on the bathroom and dining area. Something about hitting your mid-forties makes your eyes go wonky.

Tracy and I made a new sink cover. The sink cover helps enlarge your counter space because space is at a premium when you are trying to make a sandwich. We cut and sanded a piece of pine. Then we printed out some vintage travel stickers from Google images and used Modge Podge to stick them to the wood. Once it dried Tracy used Parks Super Glaze to seal and preserve the wood. We had a lot of fun working together on this project and I think it is the most beautiful sink cover in existence.

Freshly sanded and ready for stickers.

This is the epoxy glaze we used
for the sink cover and table.
I highly recommend this product not be used around cats.

Finished sink cover.

We used the same Parks Super Glaze to seal and preserve our new dining table. We found a really nice piece of 1” pine and cut it to our needed length and width. Tracy sanded and coated it with the glaze. I ordered two marine folding brackets to mount the table just under the window in the Big Lebowski’ where the old dinette had once been. We had kept the folding leg from the old dinette table and I ordered a matching folding leg to use as additional support. The brackets and legs allow us to fold the table down against the wall when we need additional floor space.

These are the marine brackets we used for the table.
The walls will eventually get recovered with marine grade vinyl.

Our new table a stools.

I don't recommend you use the glaze if cats are present.

I love the imperfections of homemade things, it gives them character and history. The history behind my table? Tracy spent an hour making sure the glaze was even and smooth before he set it out to dry. He must have forgotten about the cats because thirty minutes later we had a cat stuck to the middle of the table. Princess Kitty Princess was not happy. She spent the better part of two weeks trying to get the epoxy off her paws. So if you look very closely you can see little paw prints in my table.

So close yet so far.

The major work on the bathroom is finished, but we still have a little ways to go before we done. There is still work to be done with the old vanity. We had to remove the lavatory, cut the counter, and cabinet down to make room for the shower. There is now an open space where we plan to create a small broom closet and make a small counter top for the remaining portion of the cabinet. We could not just remove the cabinet because what remains houses the water heater. For now I hung our old metal Ex-Lax sign.

Future home of a broom closet and small vanity.
I am thinking of making the top like our sink cover.

New window coverings are in the planning, but I will not be able to finish them until I stop working. I plan on making roman shades for the side and back windows of the Big Lebowski. My last day is this coming Friday, so it won’t be long.

We have to wait for the weather to warm up to finish covering the walls with the marine grade vinyl. The spray adhesive will not work if the temperature is less than 65°F and it is going to take both of us to get the job done. We have to do this first before we can finish anything else.

I will keep posting as we finish each project so be sure to subscribe to our blog.

I have provided links to some of the items we purchased on Amazon for anyone that is interested at looking into them. If you purchase them please use the link and we will get a small fee from Amazon. It won’t be much but it will help keep the internet on so we can keep blogging.

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Attwood 90205 On-Demand Hot Water Heater