This is gonna be gross. Fair warning.
Recently Will brought me his toilet seat. He said, “Here Mom….I’m gonna need a different one of these please….and a fruit roll up.”
At first glance, it seemed fine but when you opened the lid….the seat was indeed missing. Not that I thought the one that he handed me was one that he just randomly found outside or anything….okay yes, the thought crossed my mind. THE KID FINDS CRAZY STUFF IN THE WOODS!
So here is a quickie tutorial on how to fix a toilet seat. It’s super simple. All you need is a screwdriver and an iron stomach and maybe a bucket of bleach and a scrub brush and perhaps some matches….because after you are done, you will want to hurl, scrub the skin off your hands and burn your clothes. Thankfully, if you need to pee after you do all those things…you will have somewhere to sit.
So first, pop off the covers from the back hinges of your toilet seat. It will be gross. My hinges didn’t really come without a fight and they broke when I removed them. Nastiness ensued.
The next part requires two hands. Screw driver on top and grab the twisty thing underneath the bowl that holds that screw in place.
Unscrew it and then remove both plastic screws. Prepare your iron stomach.
Oh geesh. Have your four year old hold your hair back while you vomit thinking about what is underneath those hinges.
Okay…so remove the entire toilet seat. There will be grossness under them.
Next you wanna break out your new toilet seat. We chose this one from Glacier Bay (tried to find the link but Home Depot doesn’t list it online). And when I say ‘we’ I mean, we let Will pick. He decided after thirty minutes in the toilet seat aisle that he wanted a squishy seat…mind you we only gave him three options. It’s slightly whiter than his toilet (which is off white) but he opted for comfort.
The process to reattach it is exactly like taking it off. You remove the seat from the box…
open the hinges and line them up on your CLEAN toilet….
drop the plastic screws in the holes…
and tighten the screws with your screwdriver while you hold the plastic nut on the bottom side of the bowl. (Management is always looking over my shoulder)
Close the lids to the hinges and you are done!
Let all bottoms everywhere rejoice!
Kid tested. Tush approved.
This really is something that everybody should know how to do. It’s not hard hitting journalism but it is helpful to know that some things are super simple to do around the house…so if you need a confidence boost when it comes to little things like this….don’t hire a plumber, you CAN do this. In fact, next time Will brings me a toilet seat, I’m gonna let him change it. I’ll even throw in TWO fruit roll ups for good measure. He’ll have to wash his hands of course 🙂
I love that he brought it to you, just so casually. Also that his next priority was to have a fruit roll up. I feel like my kids would have hid the toilet seat, or pretended all was fine with it. We recently had a relative who had the people from the home improvement store install the new toilet seat. There is nothing physically wrong with the couple. They can do things on their own, they just assumed it was complicated. I should email this to her so she can see how simple it is. Save them money, and my husband and I some eye rolls with our DIY judgement 😉
Thank you so much for this! I’ve had a brand-spanking-new toilet seat sitting in my closet because I just too lazy to tackle it. You’re the best!
Once upon a time my sister gave me a used toilet seat under the impression that she thought I would want to use it in my house. She had scrubbed it so much that the paint was coming off. I may have thanked her and then threw it in the trash when she left. Ug. The end.
There’s a very important step that’s not on this list! Before you go to Home Depot to buy a new seat, take note as to whether your toilet is ROUND or OVAL 🙂 I went to buy a new one and had no idea (I had never noticed!) so I called my husband to check… trying to explain the difference was interesting so he ended up just texting me a picture of our toilet! haha!
I have one of these (or one like it, mine has a soft-close feature). It’s so nice to pop the seat off and then be able to clean the back part of the toilet easily. And then I place the toilet seat in the tub, spray if down and give it a good rinse. All clean!!
http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEMIS-Lift-Off-Elongated-Closed-Front-Toilet-Seat-in-White-1520EC-000/100058606
I just did this myself-super easy and disgusting all at the same time. Your expressive writing style brought it all back…luckily I have short hair so no need to have it held back…I did get the slow-close seats so my kids wouldn’t slam them shut. I love them, but since that’s what we are all used to now we tend to slam a lot of toilets shut when we are out and about! 🙂
You should have gotten a Bemis next step toilet seat! They are the best for kiddos because they have a child sized seat that is magnetized to the lid so that they can pull it down when they need it. Plus it is soft closing so no dropping the lid on fingers or something else…. Plus it’s an easy clean, so you just have to flip the little locks and you can pull of the entire seat and kid and clean all around easily. We got ours at Home Depot and is easily one of the best things we’ve ever bought. Here’s the link from Amazon and it has more pictures of the easy clean easy off seat: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00596IFY8/ref=mp_s_a_1_13?qid=1426785434&sr=8-13&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&keywords=bemis+toilet+seats
He looks so old in the last picture! Crazy!
Totally pinning this for later! My husband and I are currently house hunting and I have a feeling this tutorial will come in handy soon!
OMG! How can you not know about the easy-clean & change toilet seats.?
Nitrile gloves. (they are the blue disposable gloves)….. I buy them by the box and they are awesome for a job like this…
I’ve replaced a couple of toilet seats in my day, and I found equally gross stuff under the hinges. I just have to say – only you could make changing out a toilet seat so entertaining! Have a great day.
I just changed ours a few weeks ago. It was super easy but my goodness as soon as I popped off those covers I gagged and ran and found some gloves. Nasty job! Haha
I keep a box box of disposable gloves under my kitchen sink just for jobs like this. Six dollars for fifty in the first aid aisle. Works great for cleaning up puke too;-)
FYI (lol) with 4 “men” in the family, that is gonna look worse when you change them in the future. Believe me, I had 3 of my own in the house. 😉
Ok, dumb question time…aren’t toilets shaped differently? I’d think you have to pick the same brand as your toilet so you know the new seat will match up with the bowl part…right?
They come in two shapes…round and elongated. So you have to know what bowl shape you already have and pick the corresponding shape toilet seat.
xo – kb
Haha!
xo – kb
The beginning of your post cracked me up. I love the nonchalant toilet seat handoff, and snack request. Perfect! Thanks for this post. We really could use new seats in our house, and I had no idea it would be this easy. The hard part would honestly be the grossness! Thanks for the warning, in case we do try this at home. 🙂
Nice Post! You’d be surprised how many times people who do it themselves get Toilet Installations wrong. ^_^ Thanks for this. Definitely going into my bookmarks section
I just had to say that I love your “Gross and Graphic” warning AND that you didn’t wipe it all away for the photos. Ha! Thanks for being real 🙂
Here is a good explanation DIY to clean my bathroom.
I have used 1) baking soda
2)Vinegar
3)Lemon sap